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BOOKS BY DR. CHRISTIAN. 



Did They Dip? or, An Examination into the Act 
of Baptism as Practiced by the English and Amer- 
ican Baptists before the Year 1641. Cloth, 75 
cents ; paper 35 cents. 

Rev. T. T. Eaton, D. D., LL. D., editor Western 
Recorder, says : 

Dr. Christian has shown a remarkable talent for gath- 
ering and arraying authorities. For more than twenty years 
he has been studying the history of immersion, and has 
spared no time nor expense to supply himself with original 
documents. I do not suppose there is a Baptist in the land 
who has anything like such an array of original documents 
on this subject as has Dr. Christian. In many cases he has 
the original editions, while in others he has official copies 
made at the British Museum and elsewhere. He has exam- 
ined more than forty books which Dr. Dexter does not 
mention in his bibliography of the subject, and which, it is 
reasonable to believe. Dr. Dexter never saw. Dr. Christian 
is also singularly accurate in his use of authorities. I have 
read this book through and have not detected a single inac- 
curacy. Many of the quotations I have personally verified 
and have found them correct, and though I have not verified 
them all, yet I have no doubt of the absolute correctness of 
every one. He courts investigation, however, and he will 
gladly welcome the detection of any mistake in the book. 
(The Introduction.) 



Immersion, The Act of Christian Baptism. 12th 
edition. Morocco Si. 50; cloth ;^i.oo; paper 35 
cents. 

Prof. VVm. H. Whitsitt, D. D., LL. D., president 
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, says : 

I have read over with much satisfaction the volume of 
Rev. Dr. Christian, entitled ' Immersion, the Act of Christ- 

2 



ian Baptism/ His treatment of the subject is industrfous, 
sprightly, pointed and entertaining. I believe that the work 
will be of real service; it is concise, yet clear and convinc- 
ing. Many people will read and appreciate it who would 
never undertake one of the more ponderous treatises. I 
trust that the blessing of God will rest upon this and every 
effort to promote a knowledge of the truth. 

Rev. John A. Broadus, late president of the 
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, says : 

This book treats every department of the subject with 
practical point a::d force; with good sense and with a good 
spirit. It is remarkably rich in testimonies of scholars, in- 
cluding the concessions of very many learned Pedobaptists, 
Romanists, etc. Every minister would do well to procure 
it, and many other devout men and women, both for per- 
sonal reading and for use with those who may be convinced. 

Dr. Maclaren, the great preacher, Manchester, 
England, says : 

This vol'^-me on immersion is carefully and industri- 
ously prepared, and its fullness and comprehensiveness 
leaves nothing to be desired. I hope its circulation may 
be large. It will be if it is commensurate with its com- 
pletenesso 

Dr. Joseph Angus, president Regents Park Col- 
lege, London, England, says : 

I am glad to have a copy of Dr. Christian's book on 
Baptism, Its thoroughness and clearness, and force and 
spirit, are all admirable; and the general circulation of it 
among the English speaking people could not fail to pro- 
mote the interests of truth and love. 

Close Communion; or, Baptism as a Prerequisite 
to the Lord's Supper. 5th edition, Morocco 
$1.50; cloth $1,00; paper 35 cents. 

Prof, A. T. Robertson, D. D., Southern Baptist 
Theological Seminary, says : 

I have enjoyed reading it and it grew upon me to 
the end. It shows the same patient investigation and 
masterly marshaling of irresistible arguments that char- 
acterized the author's work on ' Immersion.' The two 
will form an impregnable bulwark for our doctrines on 
those questions. I regard it as equal to the one on 
' Immersion.' 

3 



Prof. W. C. Wilkinson, D. D., professor in Chi- 
cago University, says : 

'Close Communion,' by J. T. Christian, can hardly fail to 
carry conviction of the truth to any candid reader. It is 
clearly written, kind in spirit, and is well adapted to the 
average Christian reader, which is exactly what a popular 
treatise on the subject should aim to be. 

Americanism or Romanism, Which? 8th edition. 
Cloth $i.oo; paper 25 cents. 

Wesley a?i Methodist, Syracuse, N. Y., says : 
There is a general expression of a noble patriotism in 
this book. The fearful arraignment of Romanism is chiefly 
upon evidence of the accredited authors and authorities 
of the Roman Catholic Church. The book is of great 
value. 

Heathen and Infidel Testimonies to Jesus Christ. 

3d thousand. Paper 5 cents. 

Four Theories of Church Government. 5 cents. 

Address, Baptist Book Concern, 

Louisville. Ky. 




DID THEY DIP? 



AN EXAMINATION INTO THE ACT OF BAPTISM 

AS PRACTICED BY THE ENGLISH AND 

AMERICAN BAPTISTS BEFORE 

THE YEAR 1641. 



/ 



John T. Christian, M. A., D. D.^ 

Pastor East Baptist Church, 
LOUISVILLE. KY.. 



And Author of ''Immersion, the Act of Baptism," "Close Com- 
munion; or, Baptism as a Prerequisite to the Lord's Supper," "Ameri- 
canism or Romanism, Which?" "Four Theories of Church Govern- 
ment," " Heathen and Infidel Testimonies to Jesus Christ," etc. 



INTRODUCTION 

B 

T. T. Eaton, 

1 ^EC 18 '^^^\ 



baptist book concern, 

LOUISVILLE. KY. 




\^, 



^ 






Entered according to an Act of Congress, in the year 1896, by 

JOHN T. CHRISTIAN, ^A^^^^J^^^, ^ ^ . 

In the Office of the Librarian, Washingtott, D. C. ^ \\V/ 



Vi 



U-j 



LC Control Number 



tmp96 027448 



INTRODUCTION. 



"pvR. CHRISTIAN has shown a remarkable 
"*-^ talent for gathering and arraying authori- 
ties. For more than twenty years he has been 
studying the history of immersion and has spared 
no time nor expense to supply himself with orig- 
inal documents. I do not suppose there is a 
Baptist in the land who has anything like such an 
array of original documents on this subject as has 
Dr. Christian. In many cases he has the original 
editions, while in others he has official copies 
made at the British museum and elsewhere. He 
has examined more than forty books which Dr. 
Dexter does not mention in his bibliography of 
the subject, and which, it is reasonable to believe, 
Dr. Dexter never saw. 

Dr. Christian is also singularly accurate in his 
use of authorities. I have read this book through 
and have not detected a single inaccuracy. Many 
of the quotations I have personally verified and 
have found them correct, and though I have not 
verified them all, yet I have no doubt of the abso- 
lute correctness of every one. He courts investi- 
gation, however, and he will gladly welcome the 
detection of any mistake in the book. The most 
unpleasant thing in connection with replying to 
Dr. Whitsitt's " Question in Baptist History " is 
calling attention to his unauthorized use of docu- 
ments, owing largely to his misplaced confidence 
7 



8 DID THEY DTP? 

ill Dr. DexLer. And yet whoever replies to any- 
book must needs call attention to its misuse of 
authorities where such misuse exists. When, for 
example, such great stress is laid on the sup- 
posed testimony of the "Jessey Church Rec- 
ords," it is needful in replying to point out that 
what is quoted as " Jessey Church Records" really 
belongs to an " ancient manuscript said to have 
been written by Mr. William Kiffin." In all this 
Dr. Christian has not gone beyond the limits of 
honorable controversy. Indeed he is not so severe 
on Dr. Whitsitt as the latter is on Dr. Clifford. 
When a man enters the lists of controversy he 
must expect his statements to be challenged. 

It should be constantly borne in mind that not 
till the year 1641 were the Baptists in England 
free to speak and write their views. It was on 
August I, 1641, that the Court of High Commis- 
sion and the Court of Star Chamber went out of 
existence. Then, and not till then, could Bap- 
tists come from their hiding places and preach 
openly. Of course their doctrines and practices 
were new to a great many people. To find in- 
stances, therefore, after 164 1, where Baptists were 
called "new" does not at all prove that they 
began to exist in 1641. Indeed the fact that they 
were then heard from so vigorously, and spread so 
rapidly, itself proves they were in existence, 
though in hiding, before. Just so soon as it was 
safe for them to show themselves they are seen 
here, there and everywhere, to the great annoy- 
ance of the state clergy, who call them " new, 
upstart sectaries/' etc. The fact that in 1644 ^^- 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

mersion had such a strong hold on the divines 
composing the Westminster Assembly that after 
a long and bitter debate they voted it down by 
only one majority is decisive proof that immer- 
sion did not begin in England in 1641. 

Then Dr. Joseph Angus, our great British 
scholar, has called attention to a number of Bap- 
tist Churches in England which trace their history 
to times long before 1641, e. g., Braintree, Ey- 
thorne, Sutton, Warrington, Bridgewater, Oxford 
and Sadmore. All the Baptists of England, so far 
as I know, believe that their fathers practiced im- 
mersion before 1641. 

Dr. Whitsitt's contention is that from 1509 to 
1641 the Anabaptists of England practiced affu- 
sion, and in that year they began to practice 
immersion. And yet he has not cited a single in- 
stance where any Anabaptists in England prac- 
ticed affusion, nor a single case where any Ana- 
baptist Church adopted immersion. The "Jessey 
Church" was not an Anabaptist Church, and an 
anonymous manuscript which has been lost, and 
whose date nobody knows, is the only evidence 
that this church began to practice immersion. 
Richard Blount is said to have gone over to 
Holland to get baptism in the true succession, 
and to have returned and baptized Blacklock, yet 
neither Blount nor Blacklock show themselves 
afterwards. When in- 1644 the Baptists of London 
put forth their Confession of Faith, the names of 
Blount and Blacklock are significantly absent 
from the list of signatures. 

While before 1641 in England Baptists were 



10 DID THEY DIP ? 

obliged to hide and to speak with bated breath, 
yet we are not left in the dark concerning their 
practices. Outsiders told of them, and so we have 
direct testimony concerning them. Dr. Christian 
gives a good deal of this, and if any of it at all be 
valid Dr. Whitsitt's thesis is overthrown. Take 
for example John Fox's testimony in his Book of 
Martyrs, published in 1562: 

There are some Anabaptists at this time in England who 
came from Germany. Of these there were two sorts; the first 
only objected to the baptising of children and to the manner 
of it by sprinkling instead of dipping. The other held many 
opinions anciently condemned as heresies; they had raised 
a war in Germany, and had set up a new king in Munster; 
but all these were called Anabaptists, from their opposition 
to infant baptism, though it was one of the mildest opinions 
they held.— Fox's Book of Martyrs, Alden ed., p. 338. 

Thus it appears that both sorts of Anabaptists 
opposed infant baptism and sprinkling, but the 
first class " only objected to " these things, while 
the second class in addition to that " held many 
opinions anciently condemned as heresies." Fox's 
Book of Martyrs has long been an English classic; 
and no one has impeached its truthfulness. What 
motive could Fox have had for misrepresentation; 
and what possible reason exists for impeaching 
his testimony? And yet his testimony has got to 
be entirely set aside, or else Dr. Whitsitt's thesis 
fails. Ten thousand men saying after 164 1 that 
immersion was " new " to them would not offset 
John Fox's testimony that he knew of immersion in 
England in 1562. But Fox is only one of many. 

One great good to come from this discussion is 
that Baptists will be better informed in regard to 
their history than ever before. Whatever may be 
the final outcome of the controversy, it must be 



INTRODUCTION. II 

admitted that Dr. Whitsitt has stirred up the Bap- 
tists in regard to their history as nobody else has 
ever done, and as nobody else is likely ever to do. 
Of all people, the Baptists are the last to be 
afraid of the truth on any subject. 

T. T. Eaton. 
Louisville, Ky., October 22, 1896. 



CHAPTER I. 

A STATEMENT OF THE CASE. 

Dr. William H. Whitsitt wrote the following 
article, which appeared as an editorial in The 
Indepe?ident, New York, September 2, 1880: 

The Congregationalist speaks of " the well-known im- 
mersion of Roger Williams by the unimmersed Ezekiel 
Holliman." We are somewhat surprised that our greatly 
learned contemporary should be betrayed into the assertion 
that Roger Williams was immersed by Ezekiel Holliman, 
To be sure all the Baptists of America so assume, but the 
editor of The Co7igregationalist is more accurately 
acquainted with the origines of Baptist history than any of 
the Baptists themselves, and we expected that its state- 
ments would be more accurate. As we understand it, 
Roger Whhams never was a Baptist in the modern sense — 
that is, never was immersed, and the ceremony referred to 
was anabaptism, rebaptism by sprinkling, and not "cata- 
baptlsm," or baptism by immersion. The baptism of Roger 
Williams is affirmed by Governor M-'inthrop to have taken 
place in March, 1639. This, however, was at least two years 
prior to the introduction of the practice of immersion 
among the Baptists. Up to the year 1641 all Baptists 
employed sprinkling and pouring as the mode of baptism. 
Now, is it reasonable to suppose that Mr. Williams, in join- 
ing the Baptists, should have made use of a form of baptism 
which they had never practiced or thought of ? To us it 
seems an historical anachronism. We admit that there are 
no positive historical statements as yet discovered concern- 
ing the mode of Mr. Williams' baptism ; but as it took place 
in the year 1689, we assume, as a matter of course, that 
sfjrinkling or pouring was the method, since no other was at 
that time in use among the Baptists. The burden of proof 
rests entirely upon those who assert that Williams was im- 
mersed. Has The Congregationalist any positive testimony 
to that effect ? If so, we shall be glad to receive it. We are 
inclined to believe that no case of immersion took place 
among the American Baptists before the year 1644. It 
seems likely that Roger Williams, on his return from Eng- 
land in that year, brought the first reliable news concerning 
the change which had taken place in the practice of the 
English Baptists, three years before, and that it was then 
that the American Baptists first resolved to accept the in- 

13 



14 DID THEY DIP ? 

novation. At any rate, our reading has not yet furnished 
us with anything- that looks like an authenticated instance 
of immersion earlier than the year 1644. But The Co7igre- 
gatioiialist is far better instructed on these topics than our- 
selves, and we shall be grateful for some further " light and 
leading " with regard to the point at issue from it, or from 
Zions Advocate, which is the only Baptist paper we know 
of that seems to have any knowledge of Baptist history. 

This was followed by another editorial from 
him on September 9, 1880, as follows: 

The proofs which are demanded by Zions Advocate of 
our recent assertion that immersion was not practiced in 
England before a period as late as 1641 are so abundant 
that one is embarrassed to know where to begin. We shall 
mention, in the first instance, the silence of history. This is 
absolute and unbroken. Tho' a number of works were 
written by Smyth, Helwys, Merton and other Baptists prior 
to 1641, and tho' these were replied to by opponents such 
as Clifton, Robinson, Ainsworth and Johnson, it is nowhere 
intimated that the Baptists were then in the practice of 
immersion. Nay, more, the earliest Baptist Confessions of 
Faith all contemplate sprinkling or pouring as the act of 
baptism. We refer, in proof of this, to the Confession of 
Faith, in twenty articles, which is subscribed by John Smyth, 
and may be found in the Appendix to Volume I of Evan's 
"Early English Baptists." We refer a^so to the Helwys 
Confession, entitled "A Declaration of Faith of English 
People Remaining at Amsterdam, Holland," printed 1611. 
We also refer to the " Propositions and Conclusions Con- 
cerning the Christian Religion,"' which were published afier 
his death, by "the remainders of Mr. Smyth's company." 

It was not until the year 1644, three years after the m- 
vention of immersion, that any Baptist confession prescribes 
"dipping or plunging the body in water as the way and 
manner of dispensing this ordinance " (" London Confession 
of 1644," Article 40). 

He then quotes some authors in support of his 
position. Of Edward Barber he says: 

Happily for us, however, the above assertion is confirmed 
by the authority of Edward Barber, the founder of the rite 
of immersion among the Baptists. In the preface to his 
" Treatise of Baptism, or Dipping," London, 1641, the earli- 
est book in the English language, to assert that immersion 
is essential to baptism, Mr. Barber praises God that he, "a 
poore tradesman," was raised up to resttrc this truth to the 
world. 



A STATEMENT OF .THE CASE. 15 

He then concludes the editorial as follows: 

Here is the highest Baptist testimony to the effect that 
there were no immersionists in England, and that the rite 
was first fetched from Holland by Mr. Richard Blount. The 
John Batten who administered immersion to Mr. Blount 
was a coUegiant minister, the successor of the Brothers 
Van der Codde. This community was founded and immer- 
sion was introduced by them into Holland in the year 1619. 
It is not known whence they obtained the practice. 

These editorials naturally caused a good deal of 
comment in Baptist circles. It was taken for 
granted they were written by some Pedobaptist 
writer, and a number of persons wrote Tlie Inde- 
pendent iox the name of the author. The Independ- 
ent kept well its own secret. It was only after 
Dr. Whitsitt's articles appeared in Johnson's New 
Encyclopaedia that he revealed that he was also 
the author of these Independent ^^MX-Oxi-dX^. Among 
other things the Encyclopaedia article says: 

Some have fancied that the new title was claimed and 
maintained because of the change in the form of adminis- 
tering baptism, which is alleged was substituted m the 
place of sprinkling and pouring. If these had been retained 
it would have been as impossible for them to shake off the 
name of Anabaptists as it was in the case of the Anabaptists 
in Germany. After the adoption of immersion it was easy 
to insist that those who practiced it were alone "baptised 
people," emphasis being laid not only on the subjects as 
formerly, but also on the mode of baptism. This latter 
emphasis was indicated by the name Baptist. * * * The 
earliest organized Baptist Church belongs to the year 1610 
or 1611. * * * Ezekiel Holliman baptized Williams 
and the rest of the company. The ceremony was most 
likely performed by sprinkling; the Baptists of England 
had not adopted immersion, and there is no reason which 
renders it probable that Williams was in advance of them. 

Dr. Whitsitt wrote three articles for the papers 
to defend this position: One in The Examiner, 
April 23, 1896; one in the Religious Herald, May 7, 
and the last a Statement, which was published in 
several papers. His book, " A Question in Baptist 



16 DID THEY DIP ? 

History," was published September 17, 1896. He 

re-affirms the foregoing position on p. 133: 

In view of the foregoing body of materials, I candidly 
consider that my proofs are sufficient. This opinion has 
been confirmed and strengthened by the renewed investi- 
gations which I have lately undertaken in order to set 
forth these proofs. Whatever else may be true in history, 
I believe it is beyond question that the practice of adult 
immersion was introduced anew into England in the year 
1641. That conclusion must be recognized more and more 
by scholars who will take pains to weigh the facts pre- 
sented in the above discussion. It is sure to become one 
of the commonplaces of our Baptist teaching, and in the 
course of time men will be found to wonder how any could 
ever have opposed it. Few other facts of history are capable 
of more convincing demonstration. 

THE DISCOVERY. 
Dr. Whitsitt appears to have frequently changed 
his mind as to how much he discovered. In 
The Examiner he makes a wide claim, but in his 
book it sinks to almost nothing at all. In The 
Examiner he claims Dr. Dexter as " his learned 
and distinguished convert," but in the book Sept. 
17, 1895, Dr. Dexter plays an entirely different 
part. 

THE TWO VIEWS. 
Dr. Whitsitt in Tlic Dr. Whitsitt in his 

Examiiier K'^x\\2i, 1896: book, Sept. 17, 1896: " 

During the autumn of Another investigator was 

1877, shortly after I had been Rev. Henry Martyn Dexter, 

put in charge of the School D. D,, of Boston, Mass., one 

to Church History at the of the foremost authorities 

Southern Baptist Theologi- for original research in the 

cal Seminary, in preparing department of church his- 

my lectures on Baptist His- tory that has yet appeared m 

tory, I made the discovery America. He spent " some 

that, prior to the year 1641, days" at the Museum for 

our Baptist people in Eng- this purpose in the winter of 

land were in the practice of 1880-81, and gathered the 

sprinkling and pouring for fruits of his labors into a 



A STATEMENT OF THE CASE. 



17 



baptism. I kept it to myself 
until the year 1880, when I 
had the happiness to spend 
my summer vacation at the 
British Museum. There I 
assured myself, largely by 
researches among the King 
George's pamphlets, that my 
discovery was genuine, and 
established it by many irref- 
ragable proofs from con- 
temporary documents. 

* * * H< Apparently 
Dr. Dexter was interested by 
my explanations and proofs, 
for he shortly found his way 
to the British Museum, 
where he also convinced 
himself that my view was 
correct and my citations au- 
thentic. As a fruit of these 
researches he issued, near 
the close of 1881, more than 
a twelve month after my 
discovery had been declared 
in The Independent, the well- 
known volume entitled 
"John Smyth the Se-Bap- 
tist," wherein he adopted my 
thesis, defended it by many 
citations, and entirely ig- 
nored my discovery as set 
forth in The Independent. 

Naturally I was glad to 
gain such a learned and dis- 
tinguished convert, and took 
little or no care of my rights 
in my discovery. =5: * * 
This discovery is my own 
contribution to Baptist his- 
tory, and when my brethren 
heap reproaches upon me it 
is nothing but right that I 
should defend my property. 
Nobody can relish being 
sneered at as a copyist, when 
it is beyond any question 
that he is himself the origi- 
nal authority and the first 



volume entitled, " The True 
Story of John Smyth, the Se- 
Baptist, told by Himself and 
his Contemporaries." This 
work, which appeared in the 
month of December, 1881, is 
of the highest importance. 
Though I had reached the 
conclusion that immersion 
was introduced into England 
in the year 1641, and public- 
ly announced the same in 
September, 1880, 1 cheerfully 
concede the high merits of 
Dr. Dexter. He uniformly 
exhibits the best kind of 
learning, great thoroughness 
and patient accuracy. More- 
over, at the time when he 
gave himself to this partic- 
ular labor, he had enjoyed 
wide experience in the busi- 
ness of origmal historical re- 
search, and his' acquaintance 
with the library of the Brit- 
ish Museum was extensive 
and valuable. 

Numbers of the citations 
which I had sought out in 
the year 1880, and which I 
still retain in manuscript 
form, I found reproduced in 
an independent fashion by 
Dr. Dexter in 1881. Like- 
wise he fell upon a good 
many passages that I had 
not seen. 



18 DID THEY DIP ? 

discoverer. My heart is wae 
to be compelled t» make 
these claims on my own be- 
half, but I remember that 
the blessed Paul, when 
sneers were heaped on him 
at Corinth, did not hesitate 
to boast that he " was not a 
whit behind the very chief- 
est apostles," and I make 
bold, under the existing 
stress, to imitate his ex- 
ample. 

More than two months, that is in July, i88o, 
before Dr. Whitsitt wrote his articles in The hide- 
pendeiit Dr. Dexter had written for his paper, The 
Congregatioiialist, an editorial on "Affused Bap- 
tists," in which he quoted many authorities; and 
fully took the position that was afterwards held 
in his book on John Smyth, viz.: that Baptists 
practiced affusion in England in the early part of 
the 17th century. The book, ** The True Story of 
John Smyth, the Se-Baptist," was published in 
December, 1881. 

But neither Dr. Dexter nor Dr. Whitsitt was 
the " discoverer " of this theory. So far as I am 
able to judge that position belongs to Robert 
Barclay, an English Quaker. His book, " Inner 
Life of the Religious Societies of the Common- 
wealth," was published in 1876, and it contains 
almost all that has so far been advanced on the 
subject. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE ANABAPTISTS OF ENGLAND. 

At the dawn of the Reformation there were 
those in England who held Baptist views. This 
statement can be abundantly proved from many 
writers. 

Some trace the Anabaptists to the Lollards. 
W. Carlos Martyn, an eminent Pedobaptist his- 
torian, says: "The Anabaptists are an innocent 
and an ev^angelical sect, had long been the most 
hunted and hated of reformers. Not a nation in 
Europe but that had anathematized them. Their 
distinctive tenet was the denial of baptism, to 
infants. They were indeed often charged with 
holding various dangerous doctrines, but their 
peculiar idea of baptism was of itself sufficient to 
bring upon them grievous punishment. The Ana- 
baptists were among the earliest dissenters. The 
disciples of their creed were found among the 
Lollards as well as among the martyrs of the 
English Reformation." (A History of the Eng- 
lish Puritans, p. i66. New York, 1867). 

I shall content myself with giving the words 
of a few writers. 

Barclay, a very strong. writer and not a Baptist, 
says: "As we shall afterwards show, the rise of the 
'Anabaptists' took place long prior to the foun- 
dation of the Church of England, and there are 
also reasons for believing that on the Continent 
of Europe, small hidden societies, who have held 
many of the opinions of the Anabaptists, have 
19 



20 DID THEY DIP ? 

existed from the times of the Apoetles. In the 
sense of the direct transmission of divine truth 
and the true nature of spiritual religion, it seems 
probable that these churches have a lineage or 
succession more ancient than the Roman Church." 
(Barclay's Inner Life of Religious Societies, 
p. 12). 

W. J. E. Bennett, of Frome, a ritualistic Episco- 
palian, says: "The historian Lingard tells us there 
was a sect of fanatics who infested the north of 
Germany, called Puritans; Usher calls them 
Waldenses; Spelman, Paulicians (the same as 
Waldenses). They gained ground and spread 
over all England. They rejected all Romish 
ceremonies, denied the authority of the Pope, 
and more particularly refused to baptize infants. 
Thirty of them were put to death for their hereti- 
cal doctrines near Oxford, but the remainder still 
held on to their opinions in private until the time 
of Henry II. (1558), and the historian. Col- 
lier, tells us that wherever the heresy prevailed, 
the churches were either scandalously neglected 
or pulled down ^//^ ^'/z/^/z/^ left u?ibapticedy (The 
Unity of the Church Broken, Vol. II., p. 15). 

Robinson, who has long been a standard, says: 
"I have seen enough to convince me that the 
present English Dissenters, contending for the 
sufficiency of Scripture, and for primitive Chris- 
tian liberty to judge of its meaning, may be 
traced back in authentic manuscripts to the Non- 
conformists, to the Puritans, to the Lollards, to 
the Vallenses, to the Albigenses, and, I suspect, 
through the Paulicians and others to the Apos- 
tles." (Robinson's Claude, Vol. II., p. 53). 



THE ANABAPTISTS OF ENGLAND. 21 

Evans, who is a very careful writer, says: 
"Dissidents from the popular church in the early 
ages, compelled to leave it from the growing cor- 
ruption of its doctrines and morals, were found 
everywhere. Men of apostolic life and doctrine 
contended for the simplicity of the church and 
the liberty of Christ's flock, in the midst of great 
danger. What the pen failed to do, the sword of 
the magistrate effected. The Novatians and 
Donatists, and others that foUow^ed them, are ex- 
amples. They contended for the independence 
of the church; they exalted the Divine Word as 
the only star^dard' of faith; they maintained the 
essential purity of the church, and the necessity 
of a holy life springing from a renewed heart. 
Extinguished by the sword, not of the Spirit — 
their churches broken and scattered — after years 
of patient suffering from the dominant sect, the 
seed which they had scattered sprang up in other 
lands. Truth never dies. Its vitality is imperish- 
able. In the wild waste and fastnesses of Europe 
and Africa it grew. A succession of able and in- 
trepid men taught the same great principles, in 
opposition to a corrupt and affluent State church, 
which distinguish modern English Nonconform- 
ists; and many of them taught those peculiar 
views of Christian ordinances which are special to 
us Baptists." (Hiitory Early Eng. Baptists, Vol. 
L, pp. 1,2). 

The learned President Edwards says: 
" In every age of this dark time there appeared 
particular persons in all parts of Christendom 
who bore a testimony against the corruptions and 



22 DID THEY DIP ? 

tyranny of the Church of Rome. There is no one 
age of Anti-Christ, even' in the darkest times of 
all, but ecclesiastical historians mention a great 
many by name who manifested an abhorrence to 
the Pope and his idolatrous worship, and pleaded 
for the ancient purity of doctrine and worship. 
God was pleased to maintain an uninterrupted 
succession of witnesses through the whole time, in 
Germany, France, Britain and other countries; as 
historians demonstrate and mention them by 
name, and give an account of the testimony which 
they held. Many of them were private persons, 
and some magistrates, and persons of great dis- 
tinction. And there were numbers in every age 
who were persecuted and put to death for this 
testimony." (Edward's Works, Vol. I., p. 460.) 

The claim is distinctly made by the above 
writers that there has been a succession of wit- 
nesses from the days of the Apostles to the pres- 
ent day. I have, however, not undertaken to 
trace such a succession, but in the space at my 
command, to set forth one of our peculiar princi- 
ples as held by persons or churches in England 
since the Reformation. Oftentimes we have only 
scant information furnished from persecuting 
edicts, and now and then from other sources. 

Thus before the time of the Reformation in 
England Baptist principles were held by many 
people, and in many parts of the country. At 
the very dawn of the Reformation Baptist princi- 
ples began to stir the wrath of Henry VIII. In 
151 1 several persons were tried by Archbishop 
Warham for holding Anabaptist opinions. These 



THE ANABAPTISTS OF ENGLAND. 23 

men held, so it was charged, " that the sacrament 
of baptism and confirmation is not necessary nor 
profitable for a man's soul." (Collier's Eccl. 
Hist. Vol. IV., p. 4). 

In 1 529-1 534 the Anabaptists are distinctly 
traceable in England. John Henry Blount, an 
Episcopalian, says: " In England the Anabap- 
tists are not distinctly traceable before the year 
1534, although much similarity is to be observed' 
between their principles and those of sectarians 
spoken of by the bishops in 1529 as 'certain 
apostates, friars, monks, lewd priests, bankrupt 
merchants, vagabonds and lewd idle fellows of 
corrupt intent,' who * have embraced the abomi- 
nable and erroneous opinions lately sprung in Ger- 
many.' " (Froude's Hist, of England, Vol. I., p. 
211. Dictionary of Sects, p. 26). 

Blount further says: 

" In A. D. 1534, however, a royal proclamation 
was issued, in which it was said that many 
strangers are come into this realm, who, though 
they were baptized in their infancy, yet have, in 
contempt of the holy sacrament of baptism, re- 
baptized themselves. They are ordered to depart 
out of the realm in twelve days, under pain of 
death." (Wilkins' Concil. III., 779. Dictionary 
of Sects, p. 26. London, 1874). 

It is certain that they did not return to the 
Continent and did remain in England. Cromwell 
left this memorandum in his pocket: " First, 
touching the Anabaptists and what the king will 
do with them." (Ellis' Orig. Let. II., 120). 



24 DID THEY DIP ? 

The old chronicler Stowe, 1535, gives the fol- 
lowing details: 

" The 25th day of May were — in St. Paul's 
Church, London — examined nineteen men and six 
women, born in Holland, whose opinions were: 
First, that in Christ is not two natures, God and 
man; secondly, that Christ took neither flesh nor 
blood of the Virgin Mary; thirdly, that children 
born of infidels may be saved; fourthly, that 
baptism of children is of none effect; fifthly, that 
the sacrament of Christ's body is but bread only; 
sixthly, that he who after baptism sinneth wit- 
tingly, sinneth deadly, and cannot be saved. 
Fourteen of them were condemned; a man and a 
woman were burnt in Smithfield; the other twelve 
of them were sent to other towns, there to be 
burnt." 

Froude says of them: 

"The details are gone, their names are gone. 
Poor Hollanders they were, and that is all. . 
Scarcely the fact seemed worth the mention, so 
shortly is it told in a passing paragraph. For 
them no Europe was agitated, no courts were or- 
dered into mourning, no Papal hearts trembled 
with indignation. At their death the world looked 
on complacent, indifferent or exulting. Yet here, 
too, out of twenty-five poor men and women were 
found fourteen who by no terror of stake or tort- 
ure could be tempted to say they believed what 
they did not believe. History has for them no 
word of praise; yet they, too, were not giving 
their blood in vain. Their lives might have been 
as useless as the lives of the most of us. In their 



THE ANABAPTISTS OF ENGLAND. 25 

deaths they assisted to pay the purchase-money 
for England's freedom." (Froude's History of 
England, Vol. II., p. 365). 

In some articles put forth in 1536 it is declared: 
" That the opinions of the Anabaptists and Pela- 
gians are to be held for detestable heresies." 
(Strype's Memorials of Archbishop Cramner, Vol. 
I., p. 85. Oxford Ed. 1848). 

The Penny Encyclopaedia says: 

" Little is known of the Baptists of England 
before the sixteenth century. Their name then 
appears among the various sects which were 
struggling for civil and religious freedom. Their 
opinions at this early period were sufficiently pop- 
ular to attract the notice of the national estab- 
lishment, as is evident from the fact that at a con- 
vocation held in 1536, they were denounced as de- 
testable heretics, to be utterly condemned. Proc- 
lamations to banish the Baptists from the kingdom 
were allowed, their books were burnt, and several 
individuals suffered at the stake. The last per- 
son who was burnt in England was a Baptist." 
(Penny Ency.,Vol. III., pp. 416, 417). 

Goadby thus speaks of the reign of Henry VIII. 
and his persecutions of the Baptists: 

"Bitterly as he hated the Papist party, after he 
had broken with Rome it was not long before he 
revealed a still more bitter hatred of all Baptists, 
English and Continental." *'But neither threats 
nor cajolery prevented the spread of Baptist 
opinions. Like the Israelites in Egypt, * the more 
they were afflicted, the more they multiplied 
and grew.' " (Goadby's Bye-Paths of Baptist His- 
tory, pp. 72-;4). 



26 DID THEY DIP ? 

Strype, 1538, says of the king: 

" The sect of the Anabaptists did now begin to 
pester this church; and would openly dispute 
their principles in taverns and public places; and 
some of them were taken up. Many also of their 
books were brought in and printed here also; 
which was the cause that the king now sent out a 
severe proclamation against them and their books. 
To which he joined the Sacramentarians, as lately 
with the others come into the land, declaring, 
'that he abhorred and detested their errors; and 
those that were apprehended he would make ex- 
amples.' Ordering that they should be detected 
and brought before the king or his council; and 
that all that were not should in eight or ten days 
depart the kingdom." (Strype's Memorials, Vol. 
I., p. 155). 

After condemning their books the king decreed : 

*' The king declares concerning Anabaptists and 
other Sacramentarians lately come into the realm, 
that he abhorred and detested their errors, 
and intended to proceed against them that were 
already apprehended, according to their merits; 
to the intent his subjects should take example by 
their punishments not to adhere to such false and 
detestable opinions, but utterly to forsake and 
relinquish them. And that wheresoever any of 
them be known, they be detected, and his majesty 
and council be informed with all convenient speed, 
with all manner abettors and printers of the same 
opinions. And his majesty charged the same 
Anabaptists and Sacramentarians not apprehended 
and known, that they within eight or ten days 



THE ANABAPTISTS OF ENGLAND. 27 

depart out of the realm, upon pain of the loss of 
their life and forfeiture of their goods." (Strype's 
Memorials, Vol. I., pp. 410-412. Collier's Eccl. 
Hist., Vol. IX., pp. 161, 162). 

A few months later also an act of Parliament 
was passed (32 Henry VHL, cap. 49), granting a 
general pardon to all the king's subjects except- 
ing those who said: -"That infants ought not to 
be baptized, and if they were baptized that they 
ought to be rebaptized when they came of lawful 
age." 

A Declaration of Faith was then drawn up en- 
dorsing the action of the king in his persecutions 
of the Anabaptists. One section reads: 

" Englishmen detest the Anabaptists, ' Sacra- 
mentaries,' and all other heresies and errors, and 
with great reverence do solemnize holy baptisme, 
the sacrament of the blessed body and blood of 
Christ, and other sacraments and sacramentalls, 
as they have done in tymes past, with all the 
laudable ceremonies and dayly masses; and do the 
other service of God in their churches, as honor- 
able and devoutly, paye their tythes and offerings 
truely as ever they did, and as any men do in any 
part of Christendome," etc. (Collier's Eccl. Hist., 
Vol. IX., p. 163). 

Some of these were burned. (Stowe's Chronicle, 

P- 579). 

Latimer says: "The Anabaptists that were 
burnt here in divers towns in England (as I have 
heard of credible men, I saw them not myself), 
went to their death, even intrepide, as ye will say, 
without any fear in the world, cheerfully. Well 



28 DID THEY DIP ? 

let them go." (Sermons of Hugh Latimer, Vol. 
L, pp. 143, 144). 

Latimer says again: 

"I should have told you here of a certain sect 
of heretics that spake against their order and 
doctrine; they will have no magistrates nor judges 
on the earth. Here I have to tell you what I 
have heard of late, by the relations of a credible 
person and a worshipful man, of a town of this 
realm of England that hath about 500 of heretics 
of this erroneous opinion in it." The margin 
says they were Anabaptists. (Sermons, p. 151. 
Parker Society, Vol. V.). 

Collier says: "Some few days before, four 
Dutch Anabaptists, three men and a woman, had 
faggots tied to their backs at Paul's Cross, and 
one man and a woman, of the same sect and 
country, were burnt in Snithfield. Cranmer, 
upon the first of October, with some others, had a 
commission from the king to try some Anabap 
tists, which, by comparing the dates of the com- 
mission with that of the execution, we may con- 
clude the trial passed upon the persons above 
mentioned." (Eccl. Hist. Vol. IV., p. 429). 

Bishop Burnet, 1547, informs us: 

" There were many Baptists in several parts of 
England." (Neal's Hist. Puritans, Vol. H., pp. 

354, 355)- 

Of the Baptists of the reign of Edward VI., 
1547-1553, Goadby says: 

" In the first year of Edward's reign, Ridley and 
Gardiner united together in a commission to deal 
with two Baptists in Kent. A Protestant Inquisi- 



THE ANABAPTISTS OF ENGLAND. 29 

tion was established, with Cranmer at its head. 
They were to pull up ' the noxious weeds of her- 
esy.' Their work was to be done with the forms 
of justice and in secret. They might line, im- 
prison, torture, and, in all cases of obstinate here- 
tics, hand them over to the civil power to be 
burnt. Four years later this commission was 
renewed, and in the same year Baptists were a sec- 
ond time excluded from a general pardon. It 
was this inquisition that condemned Joan Bucher 
and scattered, or tried to scatter, the congrega- 
tions of Baptists gathered in Kent. Still their 
numbers increased. Strype tells us that their 
opmions were believed by many honest meaning 
people; and another writer affirms that the arti- 
cles of religion, issued just before the king's 
death, ' were principally designed to vindicate the 
English Reformation from that slur and disgrace 
which Anabaptists' tenets had brought upon it,' 
a clear proof that Baptists were, at that period, 
neither few nor unimportant." (Goadby's Bye- 
Paths of Baptist History, pp. 74, 75). 

1549 an act was passed against the Anabaptists 
by the Parliament of Edward VL (3 Edward 
VI., c. 24). 

London, June 25, 1549, Bishop John Hooper in 
a letter to Henry BuUinger says: 

" The Anabaptists flock to the place and give 
me much trouble." (Original Letters Relative to 
the English Reformation, Vol. I., p. 65. Cambridge 
Ed. 1846). 

Bishop Vowler Short says: "Complaints had 
been brought to the council of the prevalence of 



30 DID THEY DIP ? 

Anabaptists. * * * * To check the prog- 
ress of these opinions a commission was ap- 
pointed." (Short's Hist. Church of England, Vol. 
VI., p. 543). 

Dr. Hase says: 

"In general, Anabaptism required that those who 
came over to it should be possessed of the strict 
heroic morals of the early Christians, the same con- 
tempt for the world and its pleasures and pains, 
and even its outward forms. By baptism a renun- 
ciation was made of the devil, the world and the 
flesh; and a vow taken to do nothing but the will 
of God. Any willful sin of an Anabaptist would 
not be pardoned, and entailed on its perpetrator 
hopeless expulsion from the community, and a 
loss of the grace of God. It was exactly on this 
account that the heresy was so dangerous, for the 
greater part of its adherents could appeal to the 
sanctity of their mode of life." (Dr. Hase's Neue 
Propheten. Apud Madden, Phantasmata, Vol. II., 
pp. 439. 440). 

"An ecclesiastical Commission in the begin- 
ning of this year was issued out for the examina- 
tion of the Anabaptists and Arians, that began 
now to spring up apace and show themselves more 
openly." (Strype's Life of Sir Thomas Smith, 

P 37). 

London, June 29, 1550, Bishop John Hooper 
writing to Henry Bullinger in regard to Essex 
and Kent says: "That district is troubled with 
the frenzy of the Anabaptists more than any other 
part of the kingdom." (Original Letters, Vol. I., 
p. «7). 



THE ANABAPTISTS OF ENGLAND. 31 

Strype says: 

" There were such assemblies in Kent." (Memo- 
rials, Vol. II., p. 266). 

Bishop Ridley's Visitation Articles required: 

"Whether any of the Anabaptists' sect, or 
other, use notoriously any unlawful or private 
conventicles, wherein they do use doctrine or ad- 
ministration of sacraments, separating themselves 
from the rest of the parish? 

** Whether any speak against infant baptism?" 
(Cardwell's Documentary Annals of the Reformed 
Church of England, Vol. I., p 91). 

Strype gives us additional information: 

" In January 27th a number of persons, a sort of 
Anabaptists, about sixty, met in a house on a Sun- 
day in the parish of Bocking, in Essex, where arose 
among them a great dispute, * Whether it were 
necessary to stand or kneel, bare headed or cov- 
ered, at prayers? And they concluded the cere- 
mony not to be material, but that the heart before 
God was required, and nothing else.' Such other 
like warm disputes there were about Scripture. 
There were, likewise, such assemblies now in 
Kent. These were looked upon as dangerous to 
church and state, and two of the company were 
thereof committed to the Marshallsea, and orders 
were sent to apprehend the rest." ' (Memorials of 
Cramner, Vol. I., p. 337). 

The Parliament of 1551 exempted the Anabap- 
tists from the pardon which was granted to those 
who took part in the late rebellion. 

During the reign of Elizabeth, 1558-1603, Eng- 
land was full of Anabaptists. 



32 DID THEY DIP t 

Marsden, one of the calmest of the Puritan 
historians, says: 

" But the Anabaptists were the most numerous, 
and for some time by far the most formidable op- 
ponents of the church. They are said to have 
existed in England since the days of the Lollards, 
but their chief strength was more abroad," etc. 
(Marsden, p. 144). 

Marsden, further says: 

" In the judgment of the church party, and not 
a few of the Puritans, Anabaptists were heretics 
of the worst kind, and those who denied tlie 
necessity or validity of infant baptism, however 
orthodox on other points, are constantly classed 
by writers of that period with Donatists, infidels, 
and atheists." (Marsden, p. 65). 

Bishop Cox writing to Gaulter, says: 

*' You must not grieve, my Gaulter, that secta- 
ries are showing themselves to be mischievous and 
wicked interpreters of your most just opinion. 
For it cannot be otherwise but that tares must 
grow in the Lord's field, and that in no small 
quantity. Of this kind are the Anabaptists, 
Donatists, Arians, Papists, and all other good for 
nothing tribes of sectaries." (Bishop Cox to 
Gaulter, Zurich Letters, 285). 

Bishop Aylmer: 

" The Anabaptists, with infinite other swarms of 
Satanistes, do you think that every pulpit may 
wyll be hable to aunswer them? I pray God there 
may be many that can." (Bishop Aylmer's Har- 
borough for Faithful Subjects. Maitland, p. 216). 

"And in these latter dales, the old festered sores 



THE ANABAPTISTS OF ENGLAND. 33 

newly broke out, as the Anabaptists, the free- 
willers, with infinite other swarms of God's ene- 
mies. These ' vgglie monsters,' ' brodes of the 
devvil's brotherhood.' " (p. 205). 

Dr. Barker, in declining the Archbishopric 
of Canterbury, says in his letter: 

*' They say that the realm is full of Anabaptists, 
Arians, libertines, free-will men, etc., against whom 
Lonly thought ministers should have need to fight 
in unity of doctrine." (Burnet's Reformation, 
Vol. II., p. 359). 

Jewel, in his correspondence with the Swiss 
divines, complains: 

"We found, at the beginning of the reign 
of Elizabeth, a large and inauspicious crop 
of Arians, Anabaptists, and other pests, which, 
I know not how, but as mushrooms spring up 
in the night and in darkness, so these sprung 
up in that darkness and unhappy night of the 
Marian times. These, I am informed, and hope 
it is the fact, have retreated before the light 
of pure doctrines, like owls at the light of the 
sun, and are nowhere to be found." (Works 
of Bishop Jewel, Vol. IV., p. 1240). 

Greenwood says: 

** I am not an Anabaptist, thank God." 

A letter was addressed to the " Dutch Church," 
in London, 1573, rebuking them for sowing discord 
among English people. (Strype's Annals Ref., 
Vol. IV., p. 520). 

On Easter day a private conventicle was dis- 
covered near Aldersgate Bar, and twenty-seven 
v/ere apprehended. Four recanted; but " eleven 



34 DID THEY DIP ? 

of them were condemned in the Consistory of the 
St. Paul's to be burnt, nine of them were banished, 
and two suffered the extremity of the fire in 
Smithfield, July 22, 1575." (Neal's Hist. Puritans, 
Vol. I., p. 340. Ed. 1732. Strype's Annals Ref., 
Vol. III., p. 564. Ed. 1824). 

Collier says: "To go back a little: On Easter 
day this spring a conventicle of Dutch Baptists 
was discovered at a house without the bars at 
Aldgate." (Collier's Eccl. Hist., Vol. VI., p. 543). 

Fuller says: 

" Now began the Anabaptists wonderfully to 
increase in the land; and as we are sorry that 
any countryman should be seduced with that 
opinion, so we are glad that (the) English as yet 
were free from that infection. For on Easter day, 
April 3, was disclosed a congregation of Dutch 
Anabaptists without Aldgate in London, whereof 
seven and twenty were taken and imprisoned; and 
four, bearing faggots, at Paul's-Cross solemnly 
recanted their dangerous opinions." (Fuller's 
Church Hist. Britain, Vol. II., p. 506). 

Collier, 1589, says: "This provision was no 
more than necessary; for the Dutch Anabaptists 
held private conventicles in London and perverted 
a great many." (Collier's Eccl. Hist., Vol. VI., 
p. 452). 

Dr. Some admits the same fact in his reply to 
Barrowe. He affirms that "there were several 
Anabaptisticale conventicles in London and other 
places." They were not all Dutchmen, for he 
further says: " Some persons of these sentiments 
have been bred at our universities." 



THE ANABAPTISTS OF ENGLAND. 35 

The Baptists of England from this date to 1641 
underwent severe persecutions, but they increased 
in numbers. After the abolition of the Court of 
High Commission and the Court of Star Chamber 
in 1641, when they were able to assert themselves, 
there were a surprising number of them in London 
and throughout England. Dexter himself gives 
the names of eleven churches in England as early 
as 1626. (The True Story of John Smyth, p. 42), 

Herbert S. Skeats, a Pedobaptist, says: 

" It has been asserted that a Baptist Church 
existed in England in A. D. 1417. (Robinson's 
Claude. Vol. H., p. 54). There were certainly 
Baptist Churches in England as early as the year 
1589 (Dr. Some's reply to Barrowe, quoted in 
Guiney's Hist., Vol. I., p. 109); and there could 
scarcely have been several organized communities 
without the corresponding opinions having been 
held by individuals, and some churches estab- 
lished for years previous to this date." (Hist. 
Dissenting Churches of England, p. 22). 

Neal says that in 1644 there were 54 Baptist 
Churches in England. (Neal's Hist. Puritans, Vol. 

III., p. i/S)- 

Baillie said in 1646: 

" Hence it was that the Anabaptists made little 
noyse in England, till of late the Independents 
have corrupted and made worse the principles of 
the old Separatists, proclaiming for errours a 
liberty both in Church and State; under this 
shelter the Anabaptists have lift up their head 
and increased their numbers much above all other 
sects of the land. (Anabaptism the True Foun- 
taine, ch. i.) 



DID THEY DIP ? 



There is no proof whatever that these churches 
came from Smyth's or Blount's, or that they ever 
practiced sprinkling for baptism. They evidently 
were Baptist Churches. 



CHAPTER III. 

IMMERSION IN ENGLAND. 

I have not space, nor has the busy reader time 
to read, a complete history of immersion in Eng- 
land. It began with Christianity in England, con- 
tinued as the general practice till the seventeenth 
century and is even now the theory of the Estab- 
lished Church. France was the first country that 
tolerated sprinkling for baptism in the fourteenth 
century. Although the climate in England was 
cold, immersion did not give place to sprinkling 
till long after. Scotland under the influence of 
Calvin and Knox, soon after the Reformation, be- 
gan to practice sprinkling and pouring, but it had 
but little effect upon England. These facts are 
fully set forth by the historians, but I shall take 
space for the words of but a few of them. 

Dr. Wall, an Episcopalian, says: 

"One would have thought that the cold countries 
should have been the first that should have changed 
the custom from dipping to affusion, because in 
cold climates the bathing of the body in water may 
seem much more unnatural and dangerous to the 
health than in the hot ones (and it is to be noted, 
by the way, that all of those countries of whose 
rites of baptism, and immersion used in it, we have 
any account in the Scriptures or other ancient his- 
tory, are in hot climates, where frequent and com- 
mon bathing both of infants and grown persons is 
natural, and even necessary to the health). But 
by history it appears that the cold climates held 
37 



38 DID THEY DIP? 

the custom of dipping as long as any; for Eng- 
land, which is one of the coldest, was one of the 
latest that admitted this alteration of the ordinary 
way." (Wall's Hist., Vol. I., p. 575). 

I will let Dr. Schaff tell something of the uni- 
versality of immersion in England: 

King Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth were immersed. 
The first Prayer Bock of Edward VI. (1549) followed the 
Office of Sarum, directs the priest to dip the child in water 
thrice: " first, dypping the rig^ht side; secondly, the left side; 
the third time, dypping the face toward the fonte." In the 
second Prayer Book (1552) the priest is simply directed to 
dip the child discreetly and warily; and permission is given, 
for the first time in Great Britain, to substitute pouring if 
the godfathers and godmothers certify that the child is 
weak. " During the reign of Elizabeth," says Dr. Wall, 
"many fond ladies and gentlewomen first, and then by 
degrees the common people, would obtain the favor of the 
priests to have their children pass for weak children too 
tender to endure dipping in the water." The same writer 
traces the practice of sprinkling to the period of the Long 
Parliament and the Westminster Assembly. This change 
in England and other Protestant countries from immersion 
to pouring, and from pouring to sprinkling, was encouraged 
by the authority of Calvin, who declared the mode to be a 
matter of no importance; and by the Westminster Assem- 
bly of Divines (1643-1652), which decided that pouring and 
sprinkling are " not only lawful, but also sufficient." The 
Westminster Confession declares: "Dipping of the person 
into the water is not necessary; but baptism is rightly 
administered by pouring or sprinkling water upon the per- 
son." (Teach., pp. 51, 52). 

Sir David Brewster says: 

During the persecution of Mary, many persons, most of 
whom were Scotchmen, fled from England to Geneva, and 
there greedily imbibed the opinions of that church. In 1556 
a book was published in that place containing "The P^orm 
of Prayer and Ministration of the Sacraments, approved by 
the famous and godly learned man, John Calvin," in which 
the administrator is enjoined to take water in his hand and 
lay it upon the child's forehead. These Scotch exiles, who 
had renounced the authority of the Pope, implicitly 
acknowledged the authority of Calvin; and returning to 
their own country, with Knox at their head, in 1559, estab- 
lished sprinkling in Scotland. From Scotland this practice 



IMMERSION IN ENGLAND. 69 

made its way into England in the reign of Elizabeth, but 
was not authorized by the Established Church. In the As- 
sembly of Divines, held at Westminster in 1643, it was keenly 
debated whether immersion or sprinkling should be 
adopted: 25 voted for sprinkling and 24 for immersion; and 
even this small majority was obtained at the earnest request 
of Dr. Lightfoot, who had acquired great influence in that 
assembly. Sprinkling is therefore the general practice of 
this country. Many Christians, however, especially the 
Baptists, reject it. The Greek Church universally adheres 
to immersion. (Edin. Ency., Vol. III., p. 236). 

I shall give but one other authority in this con- 
nection and that is the scholarly Dean Stanley. 
He says: 

We now pass to the changes in the form itself. For 
the first thirteen centuries the almost universal practice of 
baptism was that of which we read in the New Testament, 
and which is the very meaning of the word baptize; that 
those who were baptized were plunged, submerged, im- 
mersed into the water. That practice is still, as we have 
seen, continued in Eastern Churches. In the Western 
Church it still lingers among Roman Catholics in the 
solitary instance of the Cathedral of Milan; amongst Prot- 
estants in the numerous sect of the Baptists. It lasted long 
into the Middle Ages. Even the Icelanders, who at first 
shrank from the water of their freezing lakes, were recon- 
ciled when they found that they could use the warm water • 
of the geysers. And the cold climate of Russia has not 
been found an obstacle to its continuance throughout that 
vast empire. Even in the Church of England it is still ob- 
served in theory. The Rubric in the public baptism for 
infants enjoins that, unless for special causes, they are to be 
dipped not sprinkled. Edward VI. and Elizabeth were 
both immersed. But since the beginning of the seventeenth 
century the practice has become exceedingly rare. With 
the few exceptions just mentioned, the whole of the Western 
Churches have now substituted for the ancient bath the 
ceremony of letting fall a few drops of water on the face. 
(Christian Institutions, pp. 17, 18). 

Many events of English history show how 
deeply imbedded in the English mind was the 
idea of immersion. In the year 429 the Britons 
won a great battle over the Saxons. The follow- 
ing events then occurred ; 



40 DID THEY DIP ? 

"The holy days of Lent were also at hand and 
were rendered more religious by the presence of 
the priests, insomuch that the people being in- 
structed by daily sermons, resorted in crowds to 
be baptized; for most of the army desired ad- 
mission to the saving water; a church was pre- 
pared with boughs for the feast of the resurrec- 
tion of our Lord, and so fitted up in that martial 
camp as it were in a city. The army advanced, 
still wet with the baptismal water; the faith of the 
people was strengthened, and whereas human 
power had before been despaired of, the Divine 
assistance was now relied upon. The enemy 
received advice of the state of the army, and not 
questioning their success against an unarmed 
multitude, hastened forward, but their approach 
was, by the scouts, made known to the Britons, 
the greater part of whose forces being just come 
from the font, after the celebration of Easter, 
and preparing to arm and carry on the war, 
Germanus declared he would be their leader." 
(Bede's Eccl. Hist., B. L c. XX.). 

One of the most notable events of English 
history was the baptism, A. D. 596, of ten thousand 
Saxons in the river Swale. Fabyan, the old 
chronicler, thus speaks of the success of the 
work of Augustine: 

"He had in one day christened xm. of Saxons or 
Anglis in ye west ryur, yt is called Swale." 
(Fabyan's Chronicle, Vol. L, p. 96). 

Pope Gregory in a letter to Eulogius, Patriarch 
of Alexandria, informs him of this great success 
of Augustine's. He says: 



IMMERSION IN ENGLAND. 41 

"More than ten thousand English, they tell us, 
were baptized by the same brother, our fellow 
bishop, which I communicate to you to announce 
to the people of Alexandria, and that you may do 
something in prayer for the dwellers at the ends 
of the earth." (Patrol. Lat., Vol. LXXVIL, p. 

951)- 

Gregory understood this baptism to be an im- 
mersion. He said: 

"We baptize by trine immersion." (Patrol. Lat., 
Vol. LXXVIL, p. 498). 

Gocelyn, in his life of Augustine, says: 

" He secured on all sides large numbers for 
Christ, so that on the birthday of the Lord, cele- 
brated by the melodious anthems of all heaven, 
more than ten thousand of the English were born 
again in the laver of holy baptism, with an infi- 
nite number of women and children, in a river 
which the English call Sirarios, the Swale, as if at 
one birth of the church from the womb. These 
persons, at the command of the divine teacher, 
as if he were an angel from heaven, calling upon 
them, all entered the dangerous depths of the 
river, two and two together, as if it had been a 
solid plain; and in true faith, confessing the 
exalted Trinity, they were baptized one by the 
other in turns, the apostolic leader blessing the 
water. * * * So great a prodigy from heaven 
born out of the deep whirlpool." (Patrol. Lat., 
Vol. LXXX., p. 79). 

It is also reported that Paulinus, A. D. 629, 
baptized ten thousand in the same river. Cam- 
den says the Swale was accounted sacred by the 



42 DID THEY DIP ? 

ancient Saxons, above the ten thousand persons, 
besides women and children, having received 
baptism in it in one day from Paulinus, Arch- 
bishop of York, on the first conversion of the 
Saxons to Christianity. (Britannia, Vol. III., p. 

257)- 

Alcuin says of King Edwin and his Northum- 
brians: 

"Easter having come when the king had de- 
cided to be baptized with his people under the 
lofty walls of York, in which by his orders, a 
little house was quickly erected for God, that 
under its roof he might receive the sacred water 
of baptism. During the sunshine of that festive 
and holy day he was dedicated to Christ in the 
saving fountain, with his family and nobles, and 
with the commion people following. York re- 
mained illustrious, distinguished with great honor, 
because in that sacred place King Edwin was 
washed in the water." (Patrol. Lat., Vol. CI., p. 
8i8). 

Bede, referring to a period shortly following 
the baptism of the king, says: 

" So great was there the fervor of the faith, as is 
reported, and the desire of the washing of salva- 
tion among the nations of the Northumbrians, 
that Paulinus at a certain time coming with the 
king and queen to the royal country seat, which 
is called Adgefrin, stayed with them thirty-six 
days, fully occupied in catechising and baptizing; 
during which days, from morning till night, he 
did nothing else but instruct the people, resorting 
from villages and places, in Christ's saving word; 



IMMERSION IN ENGLAND. ' 43 

and when instructed, he washed them with the 
water of absolution in the river Glen, which is 
close by." (Bede's Eccl. Hist., B. II. c. xiv.). 

Bede also tells us of the baptism of the Deiri: 

"In that of the Deiri also, when he [Paulinus] 
was wont often to be with the king, he baptized 
in the river Swale, which runs by the village Cat- 
eract; for as yet oratories, or fonts, could not be 
made in the early infancy of the church in these 
parts." (B. II. c. xiv.). 

Bede says that a priest, A. D. 628, by the name 
of Deda told him that one of the oldest persons 
had informed him, that he himself had been bap- 
tized at noonday, by the Bishop Paulinus, in the 
presence of King Edwin, with a great number of 
people, in the river Trent, near the city, which is 
called in the English tongue Tiovulfingacestir. 
(B. II. c.xvi.). 

Alcuin states that after the death of Penda, Os- 
way the king of the Mercians caused them to be 
washed in the consecrated river of baptism. (Pa- 
trol. Lat., Vol. CI., p. 824). 

The Venerable Bede, A. D., 674-735, gives this 
testimony : 

" For he truly who is baptized is seen to descend 
into the fountain — he is seen to be dipped into 
the waters; but that which makes the font to re- 
generate him can by no means be seen. The 
piety of the faithful alone perceives that a sinner 
descends into the font, and a cleansed man as- 
cends; a son of death descends, but a son of the 
resurrection ascends; a son of treachery descends, 
but a son of reconciliation ascends; a son of wrath 



44 DID THEY DIP? 

descends, but a son of compassion ascends; a son 
of the devil descends, but a son of God ascends." 
(In John Evan. Ex. 3:5. Patrol. Lat., Vol. XCII., 
pp. 668, 669). 

Alcuin tells of the baptism of Csedwalla, the 
king of the West Saxons, at Rome. He says: 

" Whilst the happy king was deemed worthy to 
be immersed in the whirlpool of baptism." ( Patrol. 
Lat., Vol. CI., p. 1310). 

The Council of Cealchythe, held under Wul- 
fred, A. D. 816, says: 

" Let presbyters also know, that when they ad- 
minister baptism they ought not to pour the con- 
secrated water upon the infants' heads, but let 
them always be immersed in the font; as the Son 
of God himself afforded as example unto all 
believers, when he was three times immersed in 
the river Jordan." (Hart's Eccl. Records, p. 197. 
Cambridge, 1846). 

Collier, the English Church historian, says of 
this canon: 

" By enjoining the priests not to sprinkle the 
infants in baptism shows the great regard they 
had' for the primitive usage; that they did not 
look upon this as a dangerous rite, or at all 
impracticable in those northern climates; not that 
they thought this circumstance essential to the 
sacrament, but because it was the general prac- 
tice of the primitive church, because it was a 
lively instructive emblem of the death, burial and 
resurrection of our Saviour; for this reason they 
preferred it to sprinkling." (Collier's Eccl. Hist., 
Vol. I., p. 354). 



IMMERSION IN ENGLAND. 45 

Hastine, the Dane, A. D. 893, gave his two sons 
as hostages to Alfred, king of England, with the 
understanding if " he wished he might imbue them 
with the sacraments of faith and baptism," and 
the boys soon afterwards were ** regenerated in 
the sacred font." (Roger de Wendover's Flowers 
of History, p. 228). 

Fridegod, a monk of Canterbury, about A. D. 
900, says in his life of Wilfred: 

" He showed that those to be saved should be 
immersed in the clear waters." 

And elsewhere he says: 

" Common people seeking holy baptism are im- 
mersed." (Patrol. Lat., Vol. CXXXHI., pp. 993, 
1003). 

The Constitution of the Synod of Amesbury, 
977, was drawn up by Oswald and required: 

"All children to be baptized in nine days after 
their birth." 

Collier remarks upon this canon: 

** It is plain, as will be shown further, by and by, 
that the English Church used the rite of immer- 
sion. It seems that they were not at all discour- 
aged by the coldness of the climate, nor thought 
the primitive custom impracticable in the northern 
regions; and if an infant could be plunged into 
the water at nine days old without receiving any 
harm, how unreasonable must their scruples be 
who decline bringing their children to public bap- 
tism for fear of danger? How unreasonable, I say, 
must this scruple be when immersion is altered to 
sprinkling?" (Eccl. Hist., Vol. I., p. 474). 



46 DID THEY DIP ? 

William Malmesbury, A. D. 979-1009, says of 
the baptism of king Ethelred: 

" When the little boy was immersed in the font 
of baptism, the bishops standing round, the sac- 
rament was marred by a sad accident which made 
St. Dunstan utter an unfavorable prophecy." 
(Patrol. Lat., Vol. CLXXIX., p. 1131). 

Roger Wendover gives an account of Sweyn, 
king of the Danes, and Anlaf, king of the Nor- 
wegians, coming against London in 994. They 
were repulsed but over-ran the provinces so that 
king Ethelred had to pay them a bounty. Wen- 
dover continues: 

" King Ethelred dispatched at this time Elfege, 
Bishop of Winchester, and Duke Athelwold to 
King Anlaf, whom they brought in peace to the 
royal vill where King Ethelred was, and at his 
request dipped him in the sacred font, after which 
he was confirmed by the bishop, the king adopt- 
ing him as his son and honoring him with royal 
presents; and the following summer he returned 
to his own country in peace." (Flowers of His- 
tory, p. 272). 

Lanfranc, the thirty-fourth archbishop of Can- 
terbury, 1005-1089, was born in Italy and came to 
England by way of Normandy. Commenting on 
Phillipians iii:20 he says: 

" For as Christ lay three days in the sepulcher, 
so in baptism let there be a trine immersion." 
(Patrol. Lat., Vol. CL., p. 315). 

Cardinal Pullus, 1 144, was born in England, 
became a professor in Paris, and was highly hon- 



IMMERSION IN ENGLAND. 47 

ored of the Pope. In his book on Divinity he 
says: 

** Whilst the candidate for baptism in water is 
immersed, the death of Christ is suggested; whilst 
immersed and covered with water, the burial of 
Christ is shown forth; whilst he is raised from the 
waters, the resurrection of Christ is proclaimed. 
The immersion is repeated three times, out of 
reverence for the Trinity and on account of the 
three days' burial of Christ. In the burial of the 
,Lord the day follows the night three times; in 
baptism also trine emersion accompanies immer- 
sion." (Patrol. Lat., Vol. CLXXXVL, p. 843). 

The Synod of Cashel, A. D. 11 72, was held 
under Henry II.: 

* -It was ordained that children should be brought 
to the church and baptized in clear water, being 
thrice dipped therein, in the name of the Father, 
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." (Roger 
de Wendover's Annals, p. 352). 

We have an account of the baptism of Arthur, 
the oldest son of Henry VII. He married 
Catherine of Aragon, who after his death became 
the wife of Henry VIII. Leland says of the 
baptism of Arthur: 

•* The body of all the cathedral church of 
Westminster was hung with cloth of arras, and in 
the middle, beside the font of the said church, 
was ordained and prepared a solemn font in 
manner and form of a stage of seven steps, 
square or round like, an high cross covered with 
red worsted, and up in the midst a post made of 
iron to bear the font of silver gilt, which within 



48 DID THEY DIP ? 

side was well dressed with fine linen cloth, and 
near the same on the west side was a step, 
like a block, for the bishop to stand on, 
covered also with red saye; and over the font, of 
a good height, a rich canopy with a great gilt 
ball, lined and fringed without curtains. On the 
north side was ordained a travers hung with cloth 
of arras, and upon the one side thereof, within 
side, another travers of red scarsnet. There was 
fire without fumigations, ready against the 
prince's coming. And without, the steps of the 
said font were railed with good timber. * * * 
And Queen Elizabeth was in the church abiding 
the coming of the prince. * * * Incontinent 
after the prince was put into the font the officers- 
at-large put on their coats, and all their torches 
were lighted." (Lelandi Collectanea, Vol. IV., pp. 
204-206. London, 1774). 

Leland also gives a description at great length 
of the baptism of Margaret, the sister of Arthur, 
1490, and of Queen Elizabeth, 1533. The royalty 
were all immersed. 

Walker says of baptism during the reign of 
Edward VI., 1537-1553: 

" Dipping was at this time the more usual, but 
sprinkling was sometimes used." (Doctrine of 
Baptism, Ch. X., p. 147. London, 1678). 

The prayer book of Edward VI. provides: 

"Then the priest shall take the childe in his 
handes and aske the name; and namyng the 
childe, shall dyppe it in the water thrice. Fyrst 
dypping the right syde; second, the left syde; the 
thirde time dypping the face toward the font; so 



IMMERSION IX ENGLAND. 49 

it be wisely and discretely done; saying, I baptize, 
&c. And if the childe be weake, it shall suffice 
to pour upon it, saying the foresade wordes." 
(Collier's Eccl. Hist., Vol. II., p. 256). 

The Sarum or Saulsbury Liturgy, 1541, accord- 
ing to Collier, provides: 

"Upon Saturday, Easter-even, is hallowed the 
font, which as it were vestigium, or a remem- 
brance of baptism, that was used in the primitive 
church; at which time, and Pentecost, there was 
used in the church two solemn baptizings, and 
much concourse of people came into the same. 

"The first was at Easter, because the mystery of 
baptism agrees well to the time. For like as 
Christ died and was buried, and rose again the 
third day, so by putting into the water is signi- 
fied our death to sin, and the immersion betokens 
our burial and mortification to the same; and the 
rising again out of the water declares us to be 
risen to a new life, according to the doctrine of 
St. Paul. (Rom. vi.) 

" And the second solemn baptizing, i. e., at 
Pentecost, was because there is celebrated the 
feast of the Holy Ghost, which is the worker of 
that spiritual regeneration we have in baptism. 
And therefore the churches used to hallow the 
font also at that time." (Eccl. Hist., Vol. 11^ p. 

196). 

We select a part of the ceremony omitting the 
explanations: 

" Then follow the questions to the godfathers 
and godmothers, as representatives of the child. 
Forsakest thou the devil? Ans, I forsake him. 



50 DID THEY DIP ? 

All his works? A?is. I forsake them. And all his 
pomps and vanities? Aiis. I forsake them. Satis- 
fied with these, the minister then annoints the 
child with holy oil upon breast and betwixt the 
shoulders. Questions to ascertain the orthodoxy 
of the child are propounded. Then follows 
another series: For example, to the child the 
minister says: What asketh thou? Ans. Baptism. 
Wilt thou be baptized? Ans. I will. Satisfied 
with these replies the minister calling the child 
by name, baptizes it in the name of the Father, 
Son and Holy Ghost (putting it into the water of 
the font and taking it out again, or else pouring 
water upon it.)" (Eccl. Hist., Vol. H., pp. 192, 193. 
Note A.). 

In 1553 instructions were given to the arch- 
deacons as follows: 

" Whether there be any who will not suffer the 
priest to dip the child three times in the font, 
being yet strong and able to abide and suffer it in 
the judgment and opinion of discreet and expert 
persons, but will needs have the child in the 
clothes, and only be sprinkled with a few drops of 
water." (Hart's Eccl. Records, p. 87). 

Watson, Bishop of Lincoln, 1558, says: 

••Though the old and ancient tradition of the 
Church hath from the beginning to dip the child 
three times, etc., yet that is not such necessity; 
but if he be once dipped in the water, it is sufifi- 
cient. Yea, and in times of great peril and neces- 
sity, if the water be poured on his head, it will 
suffice." (Holsome and Catholyke Doctryne 
Concernynge the Seven-Sacraments, pp. 22, 23. 
'Xondon, 1558). 



IMMERSION IN ENGLAND. 51 

The baptism of James I., King of England was 
by immersion. He was born in the Castle of 
Edinburgh, 1556. Of his baptism it is said: 

"At convenient time you are to present her the 
font of gold, which we send with you. You may 
pleasantly say that it was made as soon as we 
heard of the prince's birth, and then it was big 
enough for him; but now he being grown, he is 
too big for it. Therefore it may be better used 
for the next child, provided it be christened be- 
fore it outgrow the font." (Turner, Vol. IV., p. 
86, note). 

James refers to " the font wherein I was chris- 
tened." (Works, London, 1616). 

Bishop Horn, of England, in writing to Henry 
BuUinger, of Zurich, in 1575, says of baptism in 
England: 

'* The minister examines them concerning their 
faith, and afterwards dips the infant in the water." 
(Zurich Letters, Second Series, Parker Society, 

p. 356). 

The Greek lexicons used in England in the 
first half of the seventeenth century were Scapula, 
Stephens, Mincaeus, Pasor and Leigh. These all 
define baptizo as dipping or submerging. 

Dr. Joseph Mede, 1 586-1638, was a very learned 
English divine. He says; 

"There was no such thing as sprinkling or 
rantism used in baptism in the Apostles' days, nor 
many ages after them." (Diatribe on Titus iii.2). 

Henry Greenwood in 1628 published " A loy- 
fvl Tractate of the most blessed Baptisme that 
euer was solemnized." It is printed in black 



52 DID THEY DIP ? 

letter. When I first read it I was led to think 
that it was by an Anabaptist preacher, but after 
further examination I found that he was of the 
Episcopal Church. He says of the baptism of 
Jesus : 

" The place where he baptized Christ was in the 
Riuer Jordan. * * * A duplicate Riuer, so-called, 
because it was composed of two Fountaines, the one 
called lor, the other Daji, and therefore the river 
hath this name Jordan: In which Riuer Naaman 
was washed and cleansed from his Leprosie, 2 
Kings, 5.14; which Riuer Eliah and Elisha diuided 
with their cloake, 2 Kings, 28.13. In this lordan 
did lohn baptize our Lord and Sauiour lesvs 
Christ." (Pp. 7, 8.) 

Daniel Rogers, 1633, published A Treatise of the 
two Sacraments of the Gospell Baptisme and the 
Supper of the Lord. He was an Episcopalian. 
He says: 

" Touching what I have said of Sacramentall 
dipping to explaine myself a little about it; I 
would not be understood as if scismatically I 
would instill a distaste of the Church into any 
weake minds, by the act of sprinkling water 
onely. But this (under correction) I say: That 
it ought to be the churches part to cleave to the 
Institution, especially it being not left arbitrary 
by our Church to the discression of the minister, 
but required to dip or dive the Infant more or 
lesse (except in cases of weaknesse), for which 
allowance in the church we have cause to be 
thankfuU; and sutably to consider that he betrayes 
the Church (whose officer hee is) to a disordered 



IMMERSION IN ENGLAND. 63 

errour, if hee cleaves not to the institution; To 
dippe the infant in water. And this I do so averre, 
as thinking it exceeding materiall to the ordi- 
nance, and no slight thing: yea, which both An- 
tiquity (though with some addition of a threefold 
dipping: for the preserving of the doctrine of the 
impugned Trinity entire) constantly and without 
exception of countries hot or cold, witnesseth 
unto: and especially the constant word of the 
Holy Ghost, first and last, approveth: as a learned 
Cretique upon Matthew, chap. 3, verse 11, hath 
noted, that the Greeke tongue wants not words to 
expresse any other act as well as dipping, if the 
institution could beare it." (P. 'j']. Lo'ndon, 1633). 

It is a very significant fact that Daniel Rogers 
was quoted by the Baptists of 1641 as having up- 
held their opinion. This could not have been if 
the Baptists of that period had been in the prac- 
tice of sprinkling. 

Stephen Denson, 1634, says: 

** Bee Baptized. The word translated baptizing 
doth most properly signifie dipping over head a?id 
eares, and indeed this was the most usual manner 
of baptizing in the primitive Church: especially 
in hotte countries, and after this manner was 
Christ himselfe baptized by Joh. Mat. 3.16. For 
there is sayd of him, that zvheii hee zvas baptized hee 
went out of the water; Which doth imply that in his 
baptizing hee went under the water, and thus all 
those that were baptized in rivers they were not 
sprinkled but dipped." (The Doctrine of Both 
Sacraments, pp. 39, 40. London, 1634). 

Edward Elton, 1637, says: 



54 DID THEY DIP ? 

" First, in signe and sacrament only, for the dip- 
ping of the party baptized in the water, and abid- 
ing under the water for a time, doth represent 
and seale unto us the buriall of Christ, and his 
abiding in the grave; and of this all are partakers 
sacramentally." (An Exposition of the Epistle 
of Saint Paul to the Colossians, p. 293. London, 
1637). 

John Selden, 1 584-1654, was regarded as the 
most learned Englishman of his time. He saysi 

" The Jews took the baptism wherein the whole 
body was not baptized to be void." (De Jure Nat., 
c. 2). 

Bishop Taylor, 161 3-1677 says: 

" If you would attend to the proper signification 
of the word, baptism signifies plunging into water, 
or dipping with washing." (Rule of Conscience, 
I., 3, c. 4). 

The Rev. Thomas Blake, who lived in Tam- 
worth, Staffordshire, A. D. 1644, says: 

** I have been an eye witness of many infants 
dipped, and I know it to have been the constant 
practice of many ministers in their places for 
many years together." (The Birth Privilige, p. 
33. London, 1644). 

Alexander Balfour says: 

** Baptizing infants by dipping them in fonts 
was practiced in the Church of England (except 
in cases of sickness or weakness) until the Direc- 
tory came out in the year 1644, which forbade the 
carrying of children to the font." (Anti-Paedo- 
Baptism Unveiled, p. 240. London, 1827). 



IMMERSION IN ENGLAND. 55 

Wall is even more definite. He says of the 
Westminster Assembly of Divines: 

"So (parallel to the rest of their reformations) 
they reformed the font into a basin. This learned 
Assembly could not remember that fonts to bap- 
tize in had been always used by the primitive 
Christians, long before the beginning of popery, 
and ever since churches were built; but that 
sprinkling as the common use of baptizing was 
really introduced (in France first, and then in 
other popish countries) in times of popery." 
(Hist. Inft. Bapt., Vol. H., p. 403). And in an- 
other place he remarks: "And for sprinkling, 
properly called, it seems that it was at 1645 3^^^ 
then beginning, and used by very few. It must 
have begun in the disorderly times of 1641." (Hist. 
Inft. Bapt., Vol. II., p. 403). 

Sir John Floyer, one of the most careful 
writers, says: 

" I have now given what testimony I could find 
in our English authors, to prove the practice of 
immersion from the time the Britons and Saxons 
were baptized till King James' days; when the 
people grew peevish with all ancient ceremonies 
and through the love of novelty and the niceness 
of parents, and the pretense of modesty, they laid 
aside immersion, which never was abrogated by 
any canon, but is still recommended by the pres- 
ent rubric of our church, which orders the child to 
be dipped discreetly and warily." (History of 
Cold Bathing, p. 61). 

But dipping was not then left off, for Floyer 
further says: 



56 DID THEY DIP ? 

" That I may furtlier convince all of my country- 
men that Immersion in Baptis7n was very lately left 
off in England, I will assure them that there are 
yet Persons living who were so immersed ; for I 
am so informed by Mr. Berisford, minister of Sttit- 
to/i in Derbyshire, that his parents Immersed not 
only him but the rest of his family at his Baptism!' 
(P. 182 London, 1722). 

Walter Craddock preached a sermon before the 
House of Commons at St. Margaret's, July 21, 
1646. Among other things he said: 

" There is now among good people a great deal 
of strife about baptism; as for divers things, so 
for the point of dipping, though in some places 
in England they dip altogether." (P. lOO). 

From the testimony introduced above we reach 
the conclusion from the introduction of Chris- 
tianity in Britain to 1650 immersion was common 
in England, and was the prevailing practice 
among all Christian denominations. It is mani- 
fest that dipping was the prescribed order of 

1. The Catholics. The Catholic ritual in use 
in England in 1641 was not opposed to immersion. 
In fact, the Roman Church never has been opposed 
to immersion. 

2. The Episcopalians. The Episcopal prayer 
book and ritual prescribed immersion as the 
ordinary act of baptism then as now. But 
there was the difference that immersion was often 
administered in the Episcopal Church of that day, 
as is not the case now. 

3. The Presbyterians. We have already seen 
that sprinkling, or rather pouring, was introduced 



IMMERSION IN ENGLAND. 57 

in Scotland by John Knox and his followers from 
Calvin. But it did not prevail in England among 
Presbyterians until the Westminster Assembly 
excluded immersion by a vote of 25 to 24, Dr. 
Lightfoot, the president, casting the deciding 
vote. This was only done after the most heated 
debate. Dr. Lightfoot himself gives this ac- 
count: 

Then we fell upon the work of the day, which was 
about baptizing " of the child, whether to dip him or to 
sprinkle." And this proposition, " It is lawful and sufficient 
to besprinkle the child," had been canvassed before our 
adjourning, and was ready now to vote; but I spake against 
it, as being very unfit to vote; that it is lawful to sprinkle 
when every one grants it. Whereupon it was fallen upon, 
sprinkling being granted, whether dipping should be 
tolerated with it. And here fell we upon a large and long 
discourse, whether dipping were essential, or used in the 
first institution, or in the Jews' custom. Mr. Coleman went 
about, in a large discourse, to prove tbilh to be dipping 
overhead. Which I answered at large. After a long dis- 
pute, it was at last put to the question, whether the 
Directory should run thus, "The minister shall take water, 
and sprinkle or pour it with his hand upon the face or fore- 
head of the child;" and it was voted so indifferently, that we 
were glad to count names twice; for so many were so un- 
willing to have dipping excluded that the votes came to an 
equality within one; for the one side were 24, the other 25, 
the 24 for the reserving of dipping and the 25 against it; 
and there grew a great heat upon it, and when we had done 
all, we concluded upon nothing in it, but the business was 
recommitted. 

Aug. 8th. But as to the dispute itself about dipping, it 
was thought safe and most fit to let it alone, and to express 
it thus in our Directory: " He is to baptize the child with 
water, which, for t6e manner of doing is not only lawful, but 
also sufficient, and most expedient to be by pouring or 
sprinkling of water on the face of the child, without any 
other ceremony." But this lost a great deal of time about 
the wording of it. (Works, Vol. XIII., p. 299. London 1824). 

Sir David Brewster is regarded as high author- 
ity. He says: "In the Assembly of Divines, 
held at Westminster in 1643, it was keenly de- 



58 DID THEY DIP ? 

bated whether immersion or sprinkling should be 
adopted: 25 voted for sprinkling, and 24 for im- 
mersion; and even that small majority was 
obtained at the earnest request of Dr. Lightfoot, 
w^ho had acquired great influence in that assem- 
bly." (Edinburgh Ency., Vol. III., p. 236). 

All this took place three years after the alleged 
"invention " of immersion by the Baptists. 

4. The Baptists. In this connection I only 
wish to say that if the Baptists between 1509 and 
1641, in England, were not in the practice of im- 
mersion, they hold the world's record for dissent. 
Here are all denominations who recognize and 
practice immersion and the Baptists alone stand- 
ing out against them all. As soon as the other 
denominations adopt sprinkling as their custom, 
all of a sudden, the Baptists changetheir practice 
from sprinkling to immersion. There is no reason 
for all of this. For my part I do not believe any 
such charge, and, I think, the following pages will 
demonstrate, that they did no such thing. 



THE ANABAPTISTS OF THE CONTINENT. 59 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE ANABAPTISTS OF THE CONTINENT. 

Dr. Whitsitt makes the broadest claims that 
all of the Anabaptists of Germany and Holland 
practiced sprinkling. His words are: 

" But none of the Anabaptists of Holland, 
or of the adjacent sections of Germany, were 
immersionists. So far as any account of them 
has come to light, they were uniformly in the 
practice of pouring or sprinkling for baptism, 
excepting the Collegiants, who, at Rhynsburg, 
began to immerse in 1620." (Page 35). 

Again: 

"The Anabaptists of Holland appear to have 
been, without exception, engaged in the practice 
of pouring and sprinkling." (Page 42). 

Here is the affirmation of a universal negative, 
which would require omniscience to prove. He 
would be compelled to know every circumstance 
of every baptism which took place among many 
thousands of persons scattered over many coun- 
tries for more than one hundred years. If just 
one Anabaptist was immersed, his thesis falls 
to the ground. Beyond the impossibility of sus- 
taining such a position, two considerations will 
answer all that Dr. Whitsitt has said in regard 
to the Anabaptists of Holland and Germany prac- 
ticing sprinkling: 

I. All who were called Anabaptists were not 
Anabaptists. It was a general name for many 



60 DID THEY DIP ? 

classes of people, and the true Anabaptists had 
to suffer much for the sins of others. Many who 
went under this name were Lutherans and other 
Pedobaptists, who had embraced certain fanatical 
opinions, and were denounced as Anabaptists. 
In reality they never embraced the Anabaptist 
faith at all. Fiislin very properly remarks: 

*' There was a great difference between Ana- 
baptists and Anabaptists. There were those 
among them who held strange doctrines; but 
this cannot be said of the whole sect. If we 
should attribute to every sect whatever senseless 
doctrines two or three fanciful fellows have taught, 
there is not one in the world to which we could not 
ascribe the most abominable errors." (Beytrage, 
Vol. II). 

It is certain, that many persons who were 
called Anabaptists were never such in reality; 
and it is also certain that many such practiced 
sprinkling. 

2. It must be remembered that this was a time 
of revolution. Men were constantly changing 
their minds. The opinion of a man yesterday 
would not be the opinion of the same man to-day. 
On no point was this more true than on the sub- 
ject of baptism. The ranks of the Anabaptists 
were constantly augmented from the ranks of the 
Catholic and Reformed Churches. The investi- 
gation of the word of God was a new thing, and 
some arrived at the truth slowly. This was emi- 
nently true of the act of baptism. Men came out 
of the Reformed Churches and for a time held on 
to sprinkling and pouring, and they were termed 



THE ANABAPTISTS OF THE CONTINENT. 61 

Anabaptists, but this was not Anabaptist doctrine, 
any more than it is Baptist doctrine to-day. This 
may be illustrated by Grebel, one of the most 
noted Anabaptist preachers of his day. It is said 
of Mantz, to whom Dr. Witsitt refers that "he 
fell upon his knees, and Grebel baptized him." 
(Cornelius, Geschichte des Miinsterischen Auf- 
rouhrs, Leipsig, i860. Vol. II., s. 26, 27). And yet 
shortly after that Grebel became a full Anabaptist 
and only practiced immersion. This will explain 
some apparent cases where sprinkling seemed to 
be practiced among the Anabaptists. The normal 
mode of baptism among the early Anabaptists 
was immersion, and I shall point out an abundance 
of testimony to confirm this proposition. 

Dr. Henry S. Burrage, very beautifully says on 
this point: 

" The Bible was read, its divine lessons were 
earnestly and tenderly unfolded, and sinners were 
urged to flee from the wrath to come. It w^as a 
new gospel to thousands, and multitudes with 
tears of repentance asked the privilege of con- 
fessing faith in Christ, retiring to some mountain 
stream to exclaim with the Eunuch, * See here is 
water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? ' The 
solemn ordinance was administered, and coming 
forth from the water both the convert and the 
bearer of the glad tidings * went on their way 
rejoicing.'" (The Anabaptists of Switzerland, p^ 
108. Philadelphia, 1882). 

We are not at all shut up to a negative view of 
this question. Fortunately we have much posi- 
tive evidence that the Anabaptists did practice 



62 DID THEY DIP ? 

dipping. Luther was a firm believer in dipping, 
and understood the Anabaptists to be dippers. 
Indeed some charge that the Anabaptists took 
the cue for their immersions from Luther him- 
self. Robinson says: 

** Luther bore the Zuinglians dogmatizing; but 
he could not brook a further reformation in the 
hands of the dippers. What renders the great 
man's conduct the more surprising is, that he had 
himself, seven years before, taught the doctrine of 
dipping. * * * The Catholics tax Luther as be- 
ing the father of the German dippers, some of the 
first expressly declare, they received their first 
ideas from him, and the fact seems undeniable, 
but the article of reforming without him he could 
not bear. This is the crime objected against them, 
as it had been against Carolostadt. This exasper- 
ated him to the last degree, and he became their 
enemy, and notwithstanding all he had said in 
favor of dipping, persecuted them under the title 
of re-dippers, re-baptizers, or Anabaptists. It is 
not an improbable conjecture, that Luther at first 
conformed to his own principles, and dipped 
infants in baptism." (Ecclesiastical Researches, 
pp. 542, 543. Cambridge, 1792). 

The translator of Luther's Controversial Works, 
speaking of Luther's sermon on baptism says: 
"The sermon and letters are directed principally 
against the Anabaptists, a fanatical sect of re- 
formers who contended that baptism should be 
administered to adults only, not by sprinkling, 
but by dipping." 

Zuingle, 1527, entitles his great work against 



THE ANABAPTISTS OF THE CONTINENT. 63 

the Anabaptists, Elenchus contra Catabaptistas. 
(Zainglii Operum, Vol. II., pp. 1-42. Ed. 1580). He 
^ives an early Confession of Faith of the Ana- 
baptists. He upbraids his opponents as having 
published these articles, but declares that there 
is scarcely any one of them that has not a written 
copy of these laws which have been so well con- 
cealed. The articles are in all seven. In reality 
it is the Schleitham Confession of Faith. The 
first, which we give in full, relates to baptism: 

'* Baptism ought to be given to all who have 
been taught repentance and change of life, and 
who in truth believe that through Christ their sins 
are blotted out, and the sins of all who are will- 
ing to walk in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 
and who are willing to be buried with him into 
death, that they may rise again with him. To all, 
therefore, who in this manner seek baptism, and 
of themselves ask us, we will give it. By this 
rule are excluded all baptism of infants, the great 
abomination of the Roman pontiff. For this 
article we have the strength and testimony of 
Scripture ; we have also the practice of the 
apostles; which things we simply and also stead- 
fastly will observe, for we are assured of them." 

Zuingle makes all manner of fun of the Ana- 
baptists, calling them " immersionists, dying 
people, re-dying them, plunging them into the 
darkness of water to unite them to a church of 
darkness, they mersed," etc. 

In 1525 Zuingle calls the Anabaptists " bath (I 
should have said) Baptist, companions." (Zuin- 
gle's Works, Vol. II., s. 240). 



64 DID THEY DIP ? 

It will be seen from the above that not only 
does Zuingle declare the Anabaptists to be dip- 
pers, but he calls them Catabaptists. This term 
will be found in many places in this book, and so 
I wish to have a definition of the term. My first 
witness as to the meaning of the word Catabap- 
tist shall be Dr. Whitsitt. When Dr. Whitsitt is 
writing under constraint and trying to establish a 
case, Catabaptist means " against baptism," but 
when he was writing without constraint the word 
meant " a dipper." 

Dr. Whitsitt in The Dr. Whitsitt in his 

Independent, 1880: book, 1896: 

The ceremony referred It used to be said that the 

to was anabaptism, rebap- word Kata baptist, so often 
tism by sprinkling-, and not applied to Anabaptists by 
"catabaptism," or baptism their opponents during the 
by immersion. Reformation period, con- 

tained indisputable proof 
that they were immersion- 
ists. The preposition kata, 
in its primary or local usage, 
means down, and so, it was 
argued, Katabaptist must 
have been one who baptized 
downwards, that is, im- 
mersed. But just as a?ta, 
meaning primarily tip, came 
to be used in the sense of 
again, so kata, in several 
technical terms, means 
agai?ist. 

Which statement of Dr. Whitsitt shall we be- 
lieve? The first of course, for that is in accord 
with all scholarship. Liddell and Scott, the 
great Greek lexicographers, in their seventh edi- 
tion, say: 

Katabaptizo, to dip under water, to drown. 

Katabaptistas, one who drowns. 



THE ANABAPTISTS OF THE CONTINENT. 65 

Dr. K. R. Hagenbach says of the Anabaptists: 

*• ' Since,' says Bullinger, ' kindness was of no 
avail with them, they were put into the high tower 
in the lower town, the one called the Witches' or 
New Tower. There were fourteen men and seven 
women of them. There they were fed on bread 
and water, to see whether it was possible to turn 
them from their error.' The threat of drowning 
was even administered in barbarous irony, for 'he 
who dips,' it was declared, 'shall himself be 
dipped.'" (History of the Reformation in Ger- 
many and Switzerland, Vol. II., p. 33). 

That the Anabaptists, or Mennonites, of Hol- 
land immersed we have many proofs. One of Dr. 
Whitsitt's principal witnesses is Baillie, and I 
show, in the chapter on English Baptists, that he 
admits that the Mennonites were dippers. Another 
one of Dr. Whitsitt's witnesses is Robinson. He 
is clear enough on this point. Robinson says: 

" Menno, the father of the Dutch Baptists, says, 
' after we have searched ever so diligently, we 
shall find no other baptism beside dipping in 
water {doopsel inder water) which is acceptable to 
God and maintained in his word.' (Mennonis 
Simonis, Opera, 1539, page 24). Menno was dipped 
himself, and he baptized others by dipping; but 
some of his followers introduced pouring, as they 
imagined through necessity, in prison, and now 
the practice generally prevails." (History of 
Baptism, pp. 694, 695. Nashville, i860). 

I now introduce an authoritative witness. It 
is Gerard Brandt, the brilliant historian of the 



66 DID THEY DIP ? 

Low Countries. This work was first published 
in 1671. He says: 

"The Reformation exclusive of Infant-baptism, 
was set on foot in Switzerland about the year 
1522, by the zeal of Conrad Grebel and Felix 
Mans, both men of learning, who fell out with 
Zuinglius, about the said opinion. Upon account 
of this difference was the first Edict against Ana- 
baptists published at Zurich; in which there was a 
Penalty of a Silver Park (or two Guilders, Dutch 
money) set upon all such as should suffer them- 
selves to be Re-baptized, or should withhold Bap- 
tism from their Children. And it was further de- 
clared, That those who openly opposed this Order, 
should be yet more severely treated. Accord- 
ingly the said Felix was drowned in Zurich upon 
the sentence pronounced by Zuinglius, in these 
four words: *Qui iterum mergit, mergatur; that 
is, he that rebaptizes with water, let him be 
drowned in the water. This happened in the year 
1526; but about the same time, and since, there 
were more of them put to death: A procedure 
which appeared very strange to some: The Zuin- 
glians, they said, were scarce got out of the reach 
of Persecution themselves, and saw those fires in 
which their fellow-believers were burnt, still daily 
smooking most of them condemned the putting 
hereticks to death, where it came home to them- 
selves, where they were uppermost. Thus doing 
to others what they would not have done to them. 
Others abused fire, they water. Those who knew 
better things ought to have done better. Neither 

*Those who immerse again, shall be immersed. 



THE ANABAPTISTS OF THE CONTINENT. 67 

were they acted by a good spirit, they could lead 
the Wanaerer into the ditch, instead of setting 
him in the right way; they could drown the in- 
fected instead of washing and cleansing him; or 
burn the Blind instead of restoring him to the 
light. 

" The first Anabaptists so far as I can gather from 
their own Writings, that were put to death for 
their perswasions in Holland, during the reign of 
Popery, were John Wadon, and two of his fra- 
ternity of Waterlandt; and all of these three 
were, with a slow fire, rather roasted than burnt to 
death in the Hague, in the year 1527. At Brus- 
sels the Dean of Louvain, Inquisitor of Brabrant, 
Holland, and the neighboring Counties, con- 
demned partly and partly received as Penitents, 
about sixty persons. At the same time the Pro- 
vost of the Regular Canons of Typres was Inquis- 
itor in Flanders, and the parts adjacent, and the 
Provost of the Scholars of Mons in Hainault, was 
Inquisitor in that district." (The History of the 
Reformation in the Low Countries, Vol. I., p, 57. 
London, 1720). 

Two things are evident from the above quota- 
tion from Brandt: First, the Anabaptists were 
dippers, and secondly the Anabaptists were of the 
same "perswasion in Holland." 

On November 19, 1526, the Council of Zurich 
confirmed the edict of March 7, that Anabaptism 
should be punished by drowning, and that the 
man should be delivered to the executioner, who 
should bind his hands, place him in a boat and 
throw him bound into the water, there to die. 



68 DID THEY DIP ? 

(Fusslin, Beytrage, I., s. 271. Engli, Acten- 
sammlung, 514, Nr. 107). Mantz, who had become 
an immersionist, received this sentence January 
5, 1527. It was carried into execution. Bullinger 
says: "As he came down from the Wellenberg to 
the fish market and was led through the shambles 
to the boat, he praised God that he was about to 
die for his truth; for Anabaptism was right and 
founded upon the word of God, and Christ had 
foretold that his followers would suffer for the 
truth's sake. And the like discourse he urged 
much, discussing with the preacher who attended 
him. On the way his mother and brother came 
to him and exhorted him to be steadfast, and he 
persevered in his folly even to the end. When he 
was bound upon the hurdle and was about to be 
thrown into the stream by the executioner, he 
sang with a loud voice: In manus tuas, 
Domine, commendo spiritum meum. ' Into thy 
hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit; ' and here- 
with was drawn into the water by the executioner 
and drowned." (Reformationsgeschchte, II., s. 
382. Frauenfeld, 1838). 

The reason for this punishment by drowning 
was that the penalty might be according to the 
offense. This is fully explained by many writers. 
The Anabaptists were immersionists therefore they 
should be drowned. 

The senate of Zurich decreed that any one 
immersing a candidate in baptism — qui merserit 
baptismo — should be drowned is a significant hint. 
(Zuingli, Opera, III., s. 364). 

John Stumpf, who during the period under 



THE ANABAPTISTS OF THE CONTINENT. 69 

survey, lived in the vicinity of Zurich and was 
familiar with the Anabaptist movement, says that 
generally the early Anabaptists of Switzerland 
were *' rebaptized in rivers and streams." (Gemei- 
ner Loblicher Eydgenossenschaft). 

Gastins, sarcastically, used to say, as he ordered 
the Anabaptists drowned: " They like immersion 
so much let us immerse them." 

In Appenzell, 1525, the Anabaptists had three 
places where meetings were held. The largest 
was Teufen, with a second at Herrisau, and the 
third at Brunnen. In all of these places the 
services were under the open sky, while the con- 
verts were baptized in the neighboring brooks 
and streams. (Burrage, p. 119). 

Sender, an old historian of Augsburg, says of 
the Anabaptists of 1525-30: 

"The hated sect in 1527 met in the gardens of 
houses, men and women, rich and poor, more than 
1,100 in all, who were rebaptized. They put on 
peculiar clothes in which to be baptized, for in 
their houses where their baptisteries were, there 
were a number of garments always prepared." 

Wagenseil, a later historian of Augsburg, says: 

"In 1527 the Anabaptists baptized none who 
did not believe with them; and the candidates 
were not merely sprinkled with water but wholly 
submerged." 

In the Bekenntniss von beiden Sacramenten, 
which at Miinster, October 22, 1533, was subscribed 
by Rothman, Klopriss, Staprade, Vienne, and 
Stralen, and was made public on the 8th of No- 
vember following, occurs this statement: "Bap- 



70 DID THEY DIP ? 

tism is an immersion in water, which the candidate 
requests and receives as a true sign that, dead to 
sin, buried with Christ, he rises to a new life, 
henceforth to walk, not in the lusts of the flesh, 
but obedient to the will of God." 

We have many instances of immersion at St. 
Gall's. It is said that Kessler, the pastor of the 
church in St. Gall, in 1523, was expounding the 
book of Romans. When he reached the sixth 
chapter, and was considering the significance of 
the ordinance of baptism, Hochriitiner interrupted 
him, saying, '* I infer from your words that you 
are of the opinion that children may be bap- 
tized." " Why not? " asked Kessler. Hochriitiner 
appealed to Mark 16:16, " He that believeth and 
is baptized shall be saved," and added that to 
baptize a child was the same as dipping in water 
any irrational creature. (Burrage, pp. 116, 117. 
Kessler, Sabatta, s. 264). 

In March, 1525, Grebel baptized Ulimann by 
immersion. The account of the baptism is taken 
from Kessler, who says: 

"Wolfgang Ulimann, on the journey to Schaff- 
hausen, met Conrad Grebel, who instructed him 
so highly in the knowledge of Anabaptism that 
he would not be sprinkled out of a dish, but was 
drawn under and covered over with the waters of 
the Rhine." (Sabbata, Vol. I., s. 266). It is plain 
that immersion is here declared to be a distinctive 
view of the Anabaptists. He was " instructed " 
in Anabaptism, therefore he would not be 
sprinkled but was dipped. 

"Wolfgang Ulimann, on his return to St. Gall, 



THE ANABAPTISTS OF THE CONTINENT. 71 

after his baptism at Shaffhausen by Grebel, gave a 
new impulse to the Anabaptist movement. Grebel 
soon followed — probably late in March, 1525 — 
and on Palm Sunday, April 9, he baptized a large 
number in the Sitter river. The St. Gall Anabap- 
tists now withdrew from the churches, leaving 
them almost empty, and holding religious services 
in private houses, and in open fields. In a short 
time the Anabaptist Church numbered eight 
hundred members." (Burrage, pp. 117, 118. Kess- 
ler, Sabbata, s. 267). 

Dr. Howard Osgood, who was at St. Gall in 
1867, says: 

" A mountain stream, sufficient for all sprink- 
ling purposes, flows through the city; but in no 
place is it deep enough for the immersion of a 
person, while the Sitter river is between two and 
three miles away, and is gained by a difficult 
road. The only solution of this choice was, that 
Grebel sought the river, in order to immerse can- 
didates." 

Kessler tells us that at St. Gall's the Anabap- 
tists had a (Taufhaus), or baptistery. (Sabbata, 
I., s. 270). 

Sicher, a Roman Catholic eye-witness, says; 
"The number of the converted (at St. Gall) in- 
creased so that the baptistery could not contain 
the crowd, and they were compelled to use the 
streams and the Sitter River." (Arx, Geschichte 
d. Stadt, St. Gallen, II., s. 501). 

August Naef, secretary of the Council of St. 
Gall, in a work published in 1850, on p. 1021 says, 
speaking of the Anabaptists of 1525: 



72 DID THEY DIP ? 

" They baptized those who believed with them 
in rivers and lakes, and in a great wooden cask 
in the butchers' square before a great crowd." 

Dr. Burrage gives a resume of the subject in 
these words: 

"Now we know that immersion was practiced 
among the Swiss Anabaptists two years before. 
How do we know? Not from the controversial 
writings of the period, but from the diary of John 
Kessler, the Zwinglian pastor at St. Gall, who, 
fortunately, one day recorded the immersion of 
Wolfgang Uliman by Conrad Grebel in the Rhine, 
at Schaffhausen, in April, 1525, and of others a 
little later, in the Sitter River, near St. Gall. And 
so the fact has come to us. Were it not for that 
diary, inasmuch as Zwingle did not publish his 
* Contra-Catabaptists ' until 1527, and inasmuch 
as the decree of the Council of Zurich against 
the Anabaptists, in which occur the words qui 
iteriim mergat mergatur, was not issued until 1527, 
the I?idepefide7it might claim that the Baptists 
of Switzerland did not practice immersion before 
1627." (Early English and American Baptists, 
by Henry S. Burrage, Independent, October 21, 
1880). 

It was claimed by the Baptists of the sixteenth 
century in most all of their controversies that the 
Dutch translation of the New Testament rendered 
the word baptizo by doop, which meant to dip. 
Many instances were given of the use of this 
word doop. I could well nigh fill a book with 
citations from Baptist authors on this point. I 
shall give a letter written to Dr. William Russell 



THE ANABAPTISTS OF THE CONTINENT. 73 

to this effect. He had made this statement in a 
public debate, and he presents this letter in con- 
firmation of his statement. The letter reads: 

" Sir, I have read your narrative of the Ports- 
mouth Disputation with some ministers of the 
Presbyterians, and have also seen another book 
published by your adversaries intitled A71 Impar- 
tial Account of the Portsmouth Disputation by Samuel 
Cha?idler, William Leigh, B en j amine RobiTison, 
wherein I find such unchristian reflections and 
wrong done you that suites not with the Profes- 
sion they make of true Religion, but greatly dem- 
onstrates the badness of their cause. And I won- 
der at their Impudence in putting so plain a cheat 
upon the World as I find in pag. 79, in these words, 
viz., whether he might not have spared all his 
Dutch? Seeing Doop in that language signifies 
only to wash, and is used when they only pour on 
water. That this account of the word Doop is 
notoriously false appears from the common use 
of the word, and the account of it which is given 
in their Dictionaries. One I have by me, which I 
believe is the largest and best in that Tongue, it 
being a double Dictionary of Dutch and Ejiglish, 
and English and Dutch, with Grammars to each of 
them: by Hendrick Hexham and Da7nel Manly and 
printed at Rotterdam, 1675 and 1678, wherein the 
English word Dip is render'd Doop: as, to dip in 
a sauce, Doopen in een sausse; to dip to the ho\.- 
\.on\, Doope?i tot den grondttoe: Dipped Gedoopt ; a 
dipping, ee?i doopinge ; and Doop, Doopfel Baptism; 
Doopen to baptize, Dooper, baptizer, Doop Dagh the 
day of Baptism; Doopen 07ider her water, to duck 



74 DID THEY DIP ? 

or dive under water. I also find that to wash or 
rinse is in Dutch, wasscheji ofte sprolen; to sprinkle, 
stray e?i spreyden sprenchen; and also Besprengen is 
to sprinkle, besprinkle or to strow: to pour is in 
Dutch Gieteii or spocteu; poured upon, Opgegoten 
ofte op Gestort. Now seeing that there is nothing 
of truth in what thae say in contradiction to you 
of the word Doop, but that it undeniably appears 
from the Dutch Dictionary to signify to dip, to 
duck or dive, and that it has nothing in its sig- 
nification on either to sprinkle or wash by pour- 
ing water, which things are render'd by other 
Dutch words: I know not how they can clear 
themselves from the guilt of a wilful Lie to cheat 
the People of the true form of gospel Baptism 
which, in my opinion, is a greater sin than to 
cheat them of their money, and its greatly to be 
lamented that any professing Godliness should so 
grossly stain their Religion for the sake of Infant- 
sprinkling, a meer human Tradition, which has 
neither Command nor Example for it in the holy 
Scriptures. Sir, I was willing to communicate 
this unto you, that if you need the Evidence of 
this Dictionary and have not already met with it, 
you may have recourse unto it, and so heartily 
wishing you the increase of true wisdom and 
Christian courage for the defence of the truth 
of Christ, which you are engaged in, I rest your 
loving Christian Friend and Brother. 
Leominster, Nov. 17, 1699. 

"Isaac Marlow." 

This claim was urged as late as early in the 
eighteenth century. Thomas Davye says; 



THE ANABAPTISTS OF THE CONTINENT. 75 

" And the Z^?//^/^ Translators almost everywhere 
translate the Words Baptize and Baptism, to dip or 
dipping. Mat. 3.1. 'John the dipper.' And v. 6. 
' Dip f din Jordan.' And z^. 16. 'Jesus beiiig dipped 
(climb'd or) came up out of the Water! And Mat. 
28.19. 'Instruct all People, dipping them i?L the Najue 
of the Father, etc. And Acts 8:36. * What hinders 
me to be dipped?' And ^'. 38. ' A?id he dipp'd him.' 
And 27. 12. ' They were dipp'd both Men and 
Women.' And Rom. 6.3. ' K?iow ye not that so 
m^.ny of us as were dipp'd into Christ Jesus were 
dipp'd into His death. ' (The Baptism of Adult 
Believers, p. 113. London, 1719). 

If the Anabaptists of Holland sprinkled it is 
strange that the Baptists of England knew noth 
ing of it. Joseph Hooke, who wrote an able book 
on baptism, says: 

" What Mr. Erratt hath placed in the margin 
concerning the Anabaptists so-called in Holland, 
I cannot credit; I never heard that they only pour 
water upon, or dip the head as he affirms, yet I was 
well acquainted with a Baptist Preacher that lived 
some years there, who never gave me an account of 
any such thing. Besides a credible author signifies 
that some tender persons of his acquaintance, 
being desirous to be rightly Baptized, have had 
water warmed for that use in the Netherlands." 
(A Necessary Apology for the Baptized Believ- 
ers, pp. 112, 113. London, 1701). 

I shall now introduce some general historians 
and writers who have examined the subject, and 
they are unanimous in their opinion that the true 
Anabaptists were dippers. 



76 DID THEY DIP ? 

Blackburn says: 

"The Anabaptists (rebaptizers, generally by 
immersion) were of almost every sort, from the 
wildest fanatics to the later and more sober 
Christians, who came to be called Baptists, the 
Mennonites from the second race of Anabap- 
tists." (History of the Christian Church, p. 

416). 

Gieseler says: y 

" They naturally disowned the name of Ana- 
baptists, as they declared infant baptism invalid, 
they rather called themselves Catabaptists. 
(Fiissli III., 229)." (A Compendium of Eccl. 
Hist., Vol. v., pp. 355, 356). 

William Robertson, Principal of the University 
of Edinburgh, says: 

"The most remarkable of their religious 
tenets related to the sacrament of baptism, 
which, as they contended, ought to be admin- 
istered only to persons grown up to years of 
understanding, and should be performed not by 
sprinkling them with water, but by dipping them 
in it; for this reason they condemned the baptism 
of infants and rebaptizing all whom they ad- 
mitted into their society, the sect came to be 
distinguished by the name of Anabaptists. To this 
peculiar notion concerning baptism, which has 
the appearance of being founded on the practice 
of the church in the apostolic age, and contains 
nothing inconsistent with the peace and order of 
human society, they added other principles of a 
most enthusiastic as well as dangerous nature." 



THE ANABAPTISTS OF THE CONTINENT. 77 

(The History of the Reign of the Emperor 
Charles V., p. 246. New York, 1829). 

Gregory and Ruter say: 

" They first made their appearance in the 
provinces of upper Germany where the severity 
of the magistrates kept them under control. But 
in the Netherlands and Westphalia they obtained 
admittance into several towns, and spread their 
principles. The most remarkable of their 
religious tenets related to the sacrament of 
baptism, which, as they contended, ought to be 
administered only to persons grown up to years 
of understanding, and should be performed, not 
by sprinkling them with water, but by dipping 
them in it. For this reason they condemned the 
baptism of Infants, and rebaptizing all whom they 
admitted into their society, the sect came to be 
distinguished by the name of Anabaptists." (A 
Concise History of the Christian Church, p. 345. 
New York, 1834). 

Schaff very fully discusses the act of baptism 
among the Anabaptists. He says: 

" The Anabaptist leaders, Hiibmaier, Denck, 
Hatzer, Hut, likewise appeared in Augsburg and 
gathered a congregation of eleven hundred mem- 
bers. They held a general synod in 1527. They 
baptized by immersion." 

Schaff makes it very clear that these Anabap- 
tists, or Catabaptists, or dippers, were the same 
in Germany, Holland, and Switzerland, and were 
gathered by the same leaders. He says: 

" All the Reformers retained the custom of 
infant baptism, and opposed rebaptism {Wieder- 



78 DID THEY DIP ? 

taufe) as a heresy. So far they agreed with tlic 
Catholics against the Anabaptists, or Catabaptists, 
as they were called, although they rejected the 
name, because in their view the baptism of infants 
was no baptism at all. 

"The Anabaptists, or Baptists (as distinct from 
Pedobaptists), sprang up in Germany, Holland, 
Switzerland, and organized independent congre- 
gations. Their leaders were Hiibmaier, Denck, 
Hatzer, and Grebel. They thought that the Re- 
formers stopped half way, and did not go to the 
root of the evil. They broke with the historical 
tradition, and constructed a new church of believ- 
ers on the voluntary principle. Their fundamental 
doctrine was, that baptism is a voluntary act, and 
requires personal repentance and faith in Christ. 
They rejected infant baptism as an anti-scriptural 
invention. They could find no trace of it in the 
New Testament, the only authority in matters of 
faith. They were cruelly persecuted in Protestant 
as well as Roman Catholic countries. We must 
carefully distinguish the better class of Baptists 
and the Mennonites from the restless revolution- 
ary radicals and fanatics, like Carlstadt, Miinzer, 
and the leaders of the Miinster tragedy. 

** The mode of baptism was not an article of con- 
troversy at that time; for the Reformers either 
preferred immersion (Luther), or held the mode 
to be a matter of indifference (Calvin). 

•' Luther agreed substantially with the Roman 
Catholic doctrine of baptism. His Tmifb'iichlein 
of 1523 is a translation of the Latin Baptismal 
service, including the formula of exorcism, the 



THE ANABAPTISTS OF THE CONTINENT. 79 

sign of the cross and the dipping." (History of 
the Christian Church, Vol. VI., pp. 578, 607, 608). 

Dr. William R. Williams, one of our very best 
Baptist historians, very closely connects the Bap- 
tists of the Continent, and especially those of 
Holland, with the Baptists of England. He had 
no doubt that the Anabaptists of Holland and the 
Baptists of England practiced immersion. He 
says: 

" But there were Anabaptists and Anabaptist 
martyrs in Holland before Menno himself had yet 
left the Roman communion. That some of these 
professed and practiced immersion, we infer from 
the fact that their persecutors, who delighted in 
fitting the penalty, as they cruelly judged it, to 
the fault, put many of them to death by full im- 
mersion, swathing the sufferers in large sacks with 
confined arms and feet, and then huddling the 
sacks with their living contents into huge punch- 
eons, where the victims were drowned. So the 
Swiss Anabaptists, some of them at least, im- 
mersed in rivers. This appears from the work 
Sabbata of Knertz, a contemporary Lutheran. 
The Dunkers, too, on our shores, who were driven 
from a Swiss or a German source, are immersion- 
ists in their own fashion, 

" A small, but in its day a very distinguished, 
branch of the Mennonites, too, were on principle 
immersionists. These were the Collegiants, or 
Rhynsburgers. * * * 

" In times later than these, in the following 
century, this same community of Holland immer- 
sionists received the accession of Wagenaar, one 



80 DID THEY DIP ? 

of the historians of Holland, whose work, in 
numerous volumes, is still consulted. The body- 
has nearly ceased to exist. Some funds for 
orphans that it possesses are still applied by the 
other branch of the Mennonites to youths, who 
have the choice of baptism by the method of the 
Collegiants or that of the Mennonites. 

**Thus in people so distinct in some periods of 
their history, and so clearly allied at other eras, 
as the nations of Holland and Britain, it has been 
seen that God's free Bible, in the hands of a free 
church, has not been without its approximating 
effects in the judgments to which it has led its 
students." (Lectures on Baptist History, pp. 
246-248). 

Dr. J. B. Thomas, Newton Theological Semi- 
nary, says: 

•'Usually they insisted upon immersion as the 
only baptism." 

In a recent and very ably written book, Will- 
iam E. Griffis, says: 

"The Nederlanders who first claimed the right 
of free reading and interpretation of the Bible 
demanded the separation of the church and state, 
and filled their country full of ideas hostile to all 
state churches, were called the Anabaptists, or 
rebaptizers, because they believed in the baptism 
of adults only, and usually by immersion." ( Brave 
Little Holland, p. 135. Boston, 1894). 

This question, however, only incidentally con- 
cerns the Baptists of England. It has never been 
shown that all of the English Baptists received 
their baptism from Holland. It is absolutely 



THE ANABAPTISTS OF THE CONTINENT. 81 

certain that the English Baptists did not all 
originate with John Smyth, and according to Dr. 
Whitsitt's theory John Smyth baptized himself. 
His baptism was not therefore from Holland. 
And his contention is that Richard Blount's bap- 
tism was by immersion. Neither has it been 
shown that all of the English Baptists of the six- 
teenth century came from Holland, for we know 
from many sources that many of them were 
natives of England. And there is not a line of 
proof that the Dutch Baptists who did come prac- 
ticed sprinkling. Dr. Whitsitt is not only under 
obligation to prove that some Dutch Baptists 
were sprinkled, but that every one who came to 
England had been sprinkled. He has assumed a 
universal negative, and the best he has attempted 
is to show that some persons who were called 
Anabaptists, were sprinkled, and I have shown 
that some of these afterwards became immer- 
sionists. 



82 DID THEY DIP ? 



CHAPTER V. 

JOHN SMYTH. 

I can but feel that entirely too much impor- 
tance has been given to the so-called se-baptism 
of John Smyth. It is a matter of little moment 
whether he dipped himself or was baptized by 
another. Crosby says that his baptism did not 
affect the baptism of the Baptist Churches of 
Fngland. His words are: 

"If he were guilty of what they charge him 
with, 'tis no blemish on the English Baptists; 
who neither approved of any such method, nor 
did they receive their baptism from him." (Hist. 
English Baptists, Vol. I., pp. 99, 100). 

It is sufficient to say of the personal history of 
John Smyth that he was a clergyman of the Epis- 
copal Church, that he was born some time in the 
sixteenth century and died in 161 1. There are 
two theories of his baptism, i. Dr. Dexter's 
theory, the one followed by Dr. Whitsitt, and the 
one generally followed by Pedobaptists, is that 
he was baptized in 1608. (The true story of John 
Smyth, p. 10). After a long dissertation, in which 
Dr. Dexter tries to prove that sprinkling was the 
general form of baptism apparently from the 
earliest days of the church, he says of Smyth: 

"Thus gathered together, after quietly waiting 
until all with one consent had laid the duty of 
beginning upon himself, I conceive of Mr. Smyth 
— disrobed sufficiently to allow of the easy wash- 



JOHN SMYTH. 83 

ing of the upper portion of his body by himself 
— as walking into the stream, lifting handsful of 
water and pouring them liberally upon his own 
head, shoulders and chest, until clean and white 
they glistened under the purifying streams, sol- 
emnly repeating as he did so that formula which 
the Saviour bequeathed to his people to the end 
of time. Then turning, I imagine as receiving his 
associates, Helwys, Murton, Pygott, Seamer, Over- 
ton, Bromhead, Jessop, Hodgkins, Bywater, Grin- 
dal, Halton, and the others, not forgetting Mary 
Smyth, Ann Bromhead, Ursula Bywater, the Dick- 
ens sisters, and the rest, and, one by one, after the 
same manner, reinitiated each into the earthly 
kingdom of God. And I have ventured here to 
introduce, as possibly with considerable exacti- 
tude pictorially representing the service per- 
formed by Mr. Smyth upon himself, a tracing 
from an ancient engraving representing the self- 
baptism in earlier days of a ' Hermobaptist.'" 
(Pp. 30, 31). 

This description is manifestly absurd. Nobody 
but an enemy of the Baptists ever presented a 
baptism in this manner. If the nude picture 
given by Dr. Dexter teaches anything, it is that 
John Smyth was immersed. And there is not one 
whit of testimony presented by Dr. Dexter him- 
self to prove that Smyth was sprinkled. It is 
purely " from fancy which may be truth" (p. 31), 
from which he draws his conclusions. The fact 
is that the whole account as given by Dr. Dexter 
is full of guesses, uncertainties, and nowhere is 
there a definite statement that John Smyth did 



84 DID THEY DIP ? 

actually baptize himself. Every one of his wit- 
nesses may be explained away without difficulty. 
No one who was an eye-witness has described the 
baptism according to this account, and we are 
left to conjecture as to whether it was by Smyth 
baptizing himself or by some one else baptizing 
him. Dr. Whitsitt gives no authorities which are 
not found in Dexter, and not one of them inti- 
mates that Smyth was sprinkled. 

Barclay, who holds to the affusion view, was 
compelled to admit that " the question of the 
manner oi baptism does not come up." (Inner 
Life of the Religious Societies, p. 70). 

Thomas Price, D. D., one of the very best 
writers on this subject, gives us some very im- 
portant data. We must remember that Smyth's 
enemies are responsible for this history, and that 
is not always trustworthy. Dr. Price says: 

" Much has been said about Mr. Smith having 
baptized himself. Ainsvvorth, Jessop, and some 
others of his opponents charge him with having 
done so, and make use of the alleged fact to 
awaken the ridicule of their readers, or to invali- 
date his administration of the ordinance. I con- 
fess that the matter does not appear to me to be 
of so much importance as some Baptist authors 
deem it; nor do I think it so easy to determine 
the truth or falsity of the statement as the writers 
on both sides, conclude it to be. The mere fact 
that such a statement was made by the contem- 
poraries of Smith, and that no direct denial of it 
has come down to us, gives it some appearance of 
truth. But, on the other hand, it must be remem- 



JOHN SMYTH. 85 

bered that the parties making the statement were 
angry controversialists, who spared no invective 
or abuse, but seemed to think that every epithet 
appropriate, and every assertion lawful, by which 
they could injure the reputation, or render ridicu- 
lous the proceedings of their opponent. Mr. 
Smith's defenses of himself are not known. His 
enemies adduce long quotations from his writings, 
but no one of them admits the fact with which 
he was charged, or attempts to justify it. He 
doubtless must have referred to it, and had he, in 
doing so, made the slightest admission, they 
would readily have retailed his language. It is a 
further confirmation of this view of the case that 
contemporaneous writers, referring to the bap- 
tismal controversy amongst the Brownists, and 
that with no friendly design, make no reference to 
such a fact." (The History of Protestant Non- 
conformity, Vol. I., p. 497). 

It will be worth while to note that Jessop, a 
backslider and renegade, and Ainsworth both 
wrote books to sustain infant baptism and to 
overthrow the position of believers — baptism, 
as held by Smyth. A close reading of these 
books would easily convince any one that they 
had no love for Smyth nor the doctrines that he 
held. 

Wilson says: 

" His principles and conduct soon drew upon 
him an host of opponents, the chief of whom 
were Johnson, Ainsworth, Robinson, Jessop and 
Clifton. The controversy began in 1606, about 
the time Smyth settled in Amsterdam. Soon 



80 DID THEY DIP ? 

afterwards he removed with his followers to Ley- 
den, where he continued to publish various books 
in defence of his opinions, till his death in the 
year 1610." (The -History and Antiquities of 
Dissenting Churches, Vol. I., p. 30). 

I will further refresh the memory of the reader 
by reminding him that this company which perse- 
cuted Smyth were those who settled in New Eng- 
land. They fled from persecution in England and 
Holland, and were hardly settled in New England 
until they were burning witches and whipping 
Anabaptists. I do not think that Smyth and his 
opinions met with much justice at their hands. 

2. There is another account given in certain 
church records of the Baptist Churches of Epworth 
and Crovvle in the Isle of Axholme, Lincolnshire, 
England. The church Covenant, dated January 
4, 1599, is recorded in these words: 

We, this church of Christ, meeting at Epworth, Crowle 
and West Butterwick, in the county of Lincohishire, whose 
names are underwritten, give up ourselves to the Lord and 
one to another according to the will of God, We do prom- 
ise and covenant in the presence of Christ, to walk together 
in the laws and ordinances of baptized be;ievers according 
to the rules of the Gospel through Jesus Christ, so helping 
us. James Rayner, John Morton, Henry Helwise, William 
Brewster, William Bradford, eiders of ye church. 

There are appended thirty-two names, some 
with the X. It is further stated that William 
Bradford was ** baptized in the old river Don below 
Epworth town at midnight, 1595." There is also 
a record that the church desired to leave for Hol- 
land, " where we hear there is freedom for all men." 

It is further recorded: 

4. It affirms that John Smith, vicar of Gainsborough, 
enquired about baptism in February 4, 1604, was convinced 



JOHN SMYTH. 87 

of its truth MayTth, a n d " at midnight on the 24th of March, 
1606, he was baptized by Elder John Morton in the river 
Uon, and walked to Epworth, a distance of two miles, in 
his wet clothes." 

And the document also records that "John 
Smith, John Morton (who immersed him), Henry 
Helwise and others held a meeting in regard to 
removing the church to Holland." This was the 
4th of April, 1609. 

The authenticity of these records has been vio- 
lently assailed by Dr. Whitsitt He says: 

A generation has passed away since 1862, and yet the 
only English production in Baptist history that has come to 
the attention of the general public has been the fraud at 
Epworth, Crowle and West Butterwick, that brings blushes 
to the cheeks of intelligent Baptist people in all parts of the 
world. (P. 15). 

On pp. 62, 63, Dr. Whitsitt uses many words of 
censure on these documents. He calls them " a 
fabulous statement," '' fabrication," " no sadder 
humiliation has ever been inflicted upon our Bap- 
tist name and cause," *' fill up the cup of our mor- 
tification," etc. Dr. Whitsitt is very severe 
against Dr. Clifford who published these records. 
Dr. Whitsitt always praises those who praise him. 
He cannot say enough of Prof. Hoop Scheffer, of 
Amsterdam, who complimented him and agrees 
with him (p. 17). But Dr. Clifford and the Eng- 
lish Baptist historians generally, who ought to 
know something of this subject, all differ with Dr. 
Whitsitt, and so their investigations reflect " a 
painful light upon the condition of studies among 
Baptists in England." (P. 6^). 

My position holds good that John Smyth was 
immersed irresnective of these records, but it 



88 DID THEY DIP ? 

is absolutely essential for Dr. Whitsitt to prove 
that these records are false. 

I would also suggest that both of these theories 
might be true. It might be true that Smyth was 
baptized in the Don river and afterwards baptized 
himself. The Baptists of that generation were 
much disturbed on the subject of a proper admin- 
istrator of baptism, and were often rebaptized. If 
Smyth was the visionary man that Dexter de- 
clares him to be, nothing would be more probable 
than that he should do this very thing. 

It is a strong fact that cannot be overcome 
that the historians declare that Smyth was im- 
mersed. The array of writers who affirm this is a 
very formidable one. I shall give some of them. 

Joseph A. Adshead, Manchester, says: 

" Mr. Smyth (who had been a Brownist) and his 
followers settled in Amsterdam in 1608. He was 
led to RENOUNCE INFANT SPRINKLING and camc to 
the conclusion that immersion was the true and 
proper manner of baptism; and that it should be 
administered only to those who are capable of 

PROFESSING FAITH IN CHRIST." (The ProgrCSS of 

Religious Sentiment, p. xix. London, 1852). 

George Punchard says: 

"Mr. Smyth proceeded first to rebaptize him- 
self, by immersion, and then to immerse Mr. 
Helwise, his associate, and several others, his 
followers." (The History of Congregationalism, 
p. 319. Salem, 1841). 

W. M. Blackburn, D. D., Methodist, says: 

"Among the English Separatists in Holland 
was Rev. John Smyth, who, probably immersed 



JOHN SMYTH. 89 

himself, felt so adverse to liturgies that he thought 
that the Bible ought not to be read publicly in. 
churches, nor psalms sung from a printed page, 
gave an Arminian shape to his vague theology, 
and at Amsterdam (1608-9) gathered a flock of 
English Baptists, who began to be more clearly 
distinguished from the Anabaptists." (History of 
the Christian Church, p. 553. Cincinnati, 1879). 
Ivimey, the Baptist historian, says: 
"Upon a further consideration of the subject, 
he saw reason to conclude that immersion was 
the true and proper meaning of the word baptism 
and that it should be administered to those only 
who were capable of professing faith in Christ." 
(A History of the English Baptists,Vol. I., p. 114). 
David Masson, M. A., LL. D., Professor of 
English Literature in the University of Edin- 
burgh, spent a great deal of time in the British 
Museum gathering material for his great life of 
Milton. He gives an interesting account of his 
work. He says: 

Of the multiplicity and extent of the researches that 
were required, any general account would be tedious. 
Perhaps, however, I may allude specially to my obliga- 
tions to the State Paper Office in London, where there 
were printed calendars of the State papers; the task of con- 
sulting them is easy. Unfortunately, when 1 began my read- 
ings in the great national repository, the domestic papers 
of the period of most interest to me — from 1640 to 1643 — 
were utterly uncalendared. They had, therefore, to be 
brought to me in bundles and inspected carefully, lest 
anything useful should be skipped. In this way I had 
to persevere at a slow rate in my readings and note papers; 
but I believe I can now say for much the greatest part of the 
time embraced in the present volume (III) — 1640 to 1643 — 
there is not a single domestic document extant of those that 
used to be in the " State Paper Office," which has not passed 
through my hands andbeen scrutinized. (Preface to Vol. III.), 



90 DID THEY DIP ? 

Masson said: 

" Now Smyth, adhering to the tenet, had pushed 
it to a logical consequence not ventured on by 
the Separatists before him. If the ordination 
of the Church of England were rejected, so that 
her ministers had to be reordained when they 
became pastors and teachers of Separatist con- 
gregations, why was the baptism of the Church 
of England accounted valid; why were not mem- 
bers of the Church rebaptized when they became 
Separatists? Through the prosecution of this 
query, aided by other investigations, Smyth had 
developed his Separatism into the form known 
as Anabaptism, not only requiring the rebaptism 
of members of the Church of England, but reject- 
ing the baptism of infants altogether, and insist- 
ing on immersion as the proper Scriptural form 
of the rite." (The Life of John Milton, Vol. II., 
p. 540. London, 1871). 

Daniel Neal, M. A., the standard Puritan histo- 
rian, says: 

"He was for refining upon the Brownist scheme, 
and at last declared for the Principles of the Bap- 
tists; upon this he left Amsterdam, and settled 
with his disciples at Leyden, where, being at a loss 
for a proper administrator of the Ordinance of Bap- 
tism, he plunged himself, and then performed the 
ceremony upon others, which gained him the name 
of Se-Baptist." (The History of the Puritans, 
Vol. II., p. 29. London, 1732). 

Thomas Price says: 

" But his views on the subject of baptism were 
still more obnoxious, and awakened an angry and 



JOHN SMYTH. yi 

fierce controversy, in which the sacredness of char- 
acter and the charity of the gospel were alike 
disregarded. His sentiments on this latter point 
were substantially as those now held by the Eng- 
lish Baptists; and the mode in which he arrived 
at them was as follows, etc." (The History 
of Protestant Nonconformity in England, Vol. I., 

p. 495). 

Taylor, the historian of the General Baptists of 
England, says; 

" In reviewing the subject of separation, Mr. 
Smyth discovered that he and his friends acted 
inconsistently in rejecting the ordination received 
from the Church of England, because they 
esteemed her a false church, and yet retained her 
baptism as true baptism. This led him to exam- 
ine the nature and ground of baptism; and he 
perceived, that neither infant baptism nor sprink- 
ling had any foundation in Scripture. With his 
usual frankness he was no sooner convinced of 
this important truth than he openly professed 
and defended his sentiments. He urged the in- 
consistency of their practice on his former asso- 
ciates so clearly that the bishop before mentioned 
tells Mr. Robinson, 'There is no remedy; you 
must go forward to anabaptism or come back to 
us; all of your Rabbins cannot answer the charge 
of your rebaptized brother (Mr. Smyth). If we 
be a true church, you must return; if we be not 
(as a false church is no church of God), you must 
rebaptize. If our baptism be good, then is our 
ordination good. He tells you true: your station 
is unsafe; either you must forward to him or 



92 DID THEY DIP ? 

back to us.' " ( Hall's Works, Vol. IX.. pp. 384, 400. 
The History of the English General Baptists, 
Vol. I., p. 68). 

Walter Wilson, who is one of the best of the 
Puritan historians, says: 

" Upon a further consideration of the subject he 
saw grounds to consider immersion as the true 
and only meaning of the word baptism, and that 
it should be administered to those alone who were 
capable of professing their faith in Christ." (The 
History and Antiquities of Dissenting Churches, 
Vol. I., p. 29). 

Thomas Wall, 1691, was a very bitter opponent 
of the Baptists. In explaining the immersion of 
John Smyth he says: 

" A third Devise these People' have found to 
Deprive Infants of their Rights to Water Baptism, 
perswading People of years they were not Bap- 
tized at all, if not Dip'd or Plung'd in Water." 
(Baptism Anatomized, p. 107. London, 1691). 

Giles Shute, in writing against the Baptists in 
1696, was very bitter. He says: 

"Now let the wise judge in what abominable 
disorder they retain their Baptisme ever since 
from Mr. Smyth; and whether it stinketh not in 
the nostrils of the Lord ever since as the ministry 
of Corah and his company did. In his Table of 
particulars, wherein this passage is directed to it, 
is querqed, who began Baptisme by way of Dip- 
ping among English People that call themselves 
Baptists? The answer is, John Smith, who Bap 
tized himself. Thus you may see upon what a 
rotten foundation the Principles of the Anabap- 



JOHN SMYTH. 93 

tists is built and at what Door that Anticovenant 
Doctrine came in among us in England; therefore 
it is of the Earth, and but a Human Innovation, 
and ought to be abhor'd and detested by all 
Christian People." (A General Challenge to all 
Antipedobaptists). 

I think that we may easily reach the conclu- 
sion, which ever of these two theories we hold, that 
John Smyth was immersed. I know not a line of 
original testimony which teaches the contrary. 
The very best in favor of sprinkling is some 
strained inferences. The historians are unanimous 
in favor of immersion, and as I have shown from 
Pedobaptist writers of the seventeenth century, it 
was the concurrent opinion of that century. 

Dr. Whitsitt makes a labored argument to prove 
that John Smyth baptized himself (p. 64) but he 
does not produce a line of proof that the baptism 
was performed by sprinkling. He only infers that 
the Mennonites practiced sprinkling, therefore 
Smyth was sprinkled. But Smyth's baptism was 
in no wise connected with the Mennonites. It is 
possible that Smyth received his views in regard to 
immersion from the New Testament. I am sure 
there is no proof that Smyth was an affusionist. 

Smyth appears to have remained pastor of this 
congregation till his death in 161 1, "when he was 
succeeded by a Thomas Helwisse, one of the old- 
est members, a plain man, of pragmatic notions, 
and quite self taught." (Masson's Life of Milton, 
Vol. II., p. 540). But Masson does not leave us in 
doubt as to the views of this new pastor. He 
savs: 



94 DID THEY DIP ? 

" Now, this Helwisse, returning to England 
shortly after i6ii, drew around him, as we saw, 
the first congregation of General or Arminian 
Baptists in London; and this obscure Baptist con- 
gregation seems to have become the depositary 
for all England of the absolute principle of Lib- 
erty of Conscience expressed in the Amsterdam 
Confession as distinct from the more stinted prin- 
ciple advocated by the general body of the Inde- 
pendents. Not only did Helwisse's folk differ 
from the Independents generally on the subject of 
Infant Baptism and Dipping; they differed also on 
the power of the magistrate in matters of belief 
and conscience." (Life of John Milton, Vol. II., 
p. 544). 

Leonard Busher appears to have been a noted 
member of this congregation of Helwise's. *' It 
was," says Masson, " in short, from their little 
dingy meeting house, somewhere in Old London, 
that there flashed out, first in England, the abso- 
lute doctrine of religious liberty. ^Religions 
Peace : or, a Plea for Liberty of Conscience,' is the 
title of a little tract first printed in 1614, and pre- 
sented to King James and the English Parliament, 
by * Leonard Busher, citizen of London.' This 
Leonard Busher, there is reason to believe, was a 
member of Helwisse's congregation and we learn 
from the tract itself that he was a poor man, 
laboring for his subsistence, who had his share of 
persecution. He had probably been one of 
Smyth's Amsterdam flock who had returned with 
Helwisse. The tract is certainly the earliest 
known English publication in which full liberty 



JOHN SMYTH. 95 

of conscience is openly advocated. It cannot be 
read now without a throb. The style is simple 
and rather helpless, but one comes on some touch- 
ing passages." (Masson's Life of Milton, Vol. III., 
p. 102). His testimony on the subject of dipping 
is clear and concisive. Busher says: 

"And therefore Christ commanded his disci- 
ples to teach all nations, and baptize them; that 
is, to preach the word of salvation to every creat- 
ure of all sorts of nations that are worthy and 
willing to receive it. And such as shall willingly 
and gladly receive, He has commanded to be 
baptized in the water; that is, dipped for dead in 
the water." (Plea for Liberty of Conscience, 
p. 50). 

From this tract it is certain that Busher held 

three distinctive Baptist doctrines : i. Liberty 

of conscience; 2. Immersion or dipping, and 3. 

Believers' baptism. In order to break the force 

of this clear and unequivocal testimony Dr. Whit- 

sitt makes the surprising declaration that there is 

no proof that Busher was a Baptist. 

Mr. Leonard Busher, a citizen of London, published in 
. 1614 the well Known " Plea for Liberty of Conscience." He 
may have been a Baptist, but there is no proof of it. He 
believed in immersion, which the Baptists had not then re- 
vived-, and describes it as "being dipped fer dead in the 
water;" but it has not been shown that he ever put this tenet 
into practice. If he did the Baptists of 1641 had never 
been informed of it. {Religious Herald, May 7, 1896). 

But in his book (pp. 6g, 70) Dr. Whitsitt 
changes his mind and Busher is declared to be an 
Anabaptist. But with the declaration of Busher 
before him that dipping was baptism Dr. Whit- 
sitt says: 



96 DID THEY DIP ? 

It is sometimes too confidently assumed that this pas- 
sage proves Mr. Busher to have been an immersionist in 
practice as well as in principle, but we know too little 
regarding him to venture distinct assertions on that point. 
* * * The act of baptism observed by him would in that 
case become a question for Dutch archaeologists. But 
either Dutch or English archaeologists, founding on the 
mere fact that he was an immersionist in principle, must 
jump a long distance to the conclusion that he was also an 
immersionist in practice. * * * j^ brief words, Mr. 
Busher is a shadowy figure, and it is entirely uncertain 
whether he spent his last years in England or Holland. 
Therefore we are not entitled, for the present at least, to 
establish any definite conclusions regarding him or his 
people, except that if he had practiced immersion at Am- 
sterdam in 1611 we should have been likely to hear a good 
deal more about him than has been brought to light hither- 
to. * * * The most that can be safely claimed for Mr. 
Busher is that he was an advance herald of genuine Bap- 
tist principles in Holland, that were shortly to be reduced 
to practice in England. 

We have the surprising declarations that Busher 
was an Anabaptist, was a believer in, and advocate 
of immersion, and yet that he did not practice it. 
This is only on a line with much of the rest of this 
remarkable book. Every effort is made to dis- 
credit all who practice immersion and to explain 
away the facts, and a like effort is made to exalt 
all who practice sprinkling and to magnify the 
number of such examples among Anabaptists. 

I know of no Pedobaptist author who denies 
that Busher was a Baptist; and with the excep- 
tion of Dr. Whitsitt, there is no difference of 
opinion on this subject among Baptist authors. 
I give the testimony of a few Pedobaptist writers: 

Barclay says: 

" In 1614, Leonard Busher, who is believed to 
have been a member of Helwys' and Morton's 
church, presented to King James and the Parlia- 
ment his petition for liberty of conscience, which 



JOHN SMYTH. 97 

was published in 1614." (The Inner Life of Re- 
ligious Societies, p. 98). 

Rev. A. H. Drysdale, M. A., a Presbyterian his- 
torian, says: . 

"Unquestionably it was the Baptists who first 
repudiated, clearly and strongly, all coercive 
power whatever in religion (see especially Leon- 
ard Busher's Religions Peace ; or, a Plea for Liberty of 
Conscience, 1614); and they were constant to this 
principle throughout." (History of the Presby- 
terians in England, p. 353, note). 

John Stoughton says: 

"The Baptists were foremost in the advocacy of 
religious freedom, and perhaps to one of them, 
Leonard Busher, citizen of London, belongs the 
honor of presenting in this country the first dis- 
tinct and broad plea for liberty of conscience. It 
is dated 1614, and is prefaced by an epistle to the 
Presbyterian reader; and a very remarkable epis- 
tle it is, deserving a renown which it has never 
acquired." (Ecclesiastical History of England, 
p. 231). 

Hanbury says: 

"'Religious Peace; or, a Plea for Liberty of 
Conscience,' by Leonard Busher, a citizen of 
London, and a Baptist, 1614." (Memorials, Vol. 
I., p. 224, note). 

The Baptists have been equally as explicit as 
the Pedobaptists in declaring that Leonard Busher 
was a Baptist. B. Evans, (Early English Baptists, 
Vol. I., pp. 229-231 ) ; Richard B. Cook, (The Story 
of the Baptists, pp. 86, 87); George B. Taylor, 
(Religious Freedom, p. 32); and Armitage, (His- 
7 



98 DID THEY DIP ? 

tory of the Baptists, pp. 440, 441), all so affirm. 
I shall quote some words from Prof. Vedder, of 
Crozer Seminary, whom Dr. Whitsitt claims sus- 
tains his position. He has made two declarations 
on the subject. The first (Baptists and Liberty 
of Conscience, p. 18. Cincinnati, 1884) was be- 
fore this controversy began, and the second in 
The Exami?ier, May 21, 1896. I quote from the 
latter. Prof. Vedder says: 

"That honor belongs, as far as known, to 
Leonard Busher, who wrote a tract in favor of 
liberty of conscience in 1614, called Religio?is 
Peace. Dr. Whitsitt indeed says that there is no 
proof that he was a Baptist. / ca7i o?ily mildly 
express my surprise that it takes so much proof to con- 
vince the good doctor of some things, a?id so little to 
convince him of others. It seems to me that no- 
body who reads the book of Busher can be in any 
real doubt as to who and what he was. If Ed- 
ward Barber was a Baptist, Leonard Busher was 
a Baptist; and the latter wrote: 'And such as 
gladly receive it [the Gospel] he hath commanded 
to be baptized in water; that is, dipped for dead 
in the water.' We do not find such a sentiment, 
outside Baptist literature, in the first half of the 
seventeenth century." 

It does not seem to me that anything could be 
clearer than that Busher was a Baptist. No man 
save a Baptist, in the early part of the seven- 
teenth century, held such views on liberty of 
conscience and baptism. If we had no other 
authority, this statement of Busher's alone ought 
to settle the question of dipping among the Eng- 
lish Baptists. 



THE BAPTISTS OF 164I. 99 

CHAPTER VL 

THE BAPTISTS OF 164I. 

Dr. Whitsitt says: 

I have often declared it to be my opinion that the im- 
mersion of adult believers was a lost art in England, from 
the year 1509, the accession of Henry VIII., to the year 
1641, following the imprisonment of Archbishop Laud. 
( Western Recorder, July 9, 1896). 

This statement is neither true in reference to 
the Episcopalians nor the Baptists. In regard to 
the Episcopalians we have direct testimony. The 
Catechism of Edward VI., A. D. 1553, has: 

''Master: Tell me (my son) how these two 
sacraments be ministered: baptism, and that 
which Paul calleth the supper of the Lord. 

''Scholar: Him that believeth in Christ; pro- 
fesseth the articles of the Christian Religion; and 
mindeth to be baptized (I speak now of them 
that be grown to ripe years of discression, sith for 
young babes their parents' or the Church's pro- 
fession suflficeth), the minister dippeth in or 
washeth with pure and clear water only, in the name 
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Ghost; and then commendeth him by prayer to 
God, into whose Church he is now openly as it 
were enrolled that it may please God to grant 
him his grace whereby he may answer in belief 
and life agreeably to his profession." (P. 516, 
The Two Liturgies, 1549 and 1552. Parker So- 
ciety, Cambridge, 1844). 

I shall give a more extended statement of the 
Baptists. The Baptists of this period had been 



100 DID THEY DIP ? 

greatly persecuted. They seldom dared to write 
anything, and to keep church records would only 
endanger their lives. They were banished, im- 
prisoned and burned. For an account of the 
Anabaptists we must for the most part look to 
their enemies, and we must remember the bitter 
malignity of these enemies. The persecutions 
of Laud were scarcely more severe than those 
which went before. Laud had almost abso- 
lute authority. He was suspected of trying to 
restore Romanism, and there is no doubt that 
he possessed the Roman Catholic spirit of 
persecution. In order to carry out his designs he 
was compelled to silence all opposers. William 
Lee says of him: 

** The fact now referred to is of itself sufficient; 
and it is hardly necessary to go into the question, 
how, under Laud's rule, the repression of the non- 
conformists was carried out. He is said to have 
preferred persuasion to force; but it is not denied 
that, when necessary, the most horrible severities 
were employed under his sanction to enforce con- 
formity. The cases of Leighton, Prynnes, Bost- 
wick and Burton are well known, with hundreds 
of cases of dissenters, who, if not shockingly 
mutilated and condemned to perpetual imprison- 
ment, were silenced and compelled to seek 
liberty of conscience beyond seas, or, worse than 
all, to violate their own sense of duty, and lose 
their spiritual, in seeking to save their bodily, life 
and well-being. Nor is it disputed that of the 
Star Chamber and Court of High Commission, by 
which these men were condemned, Laud was the 



THE BAPTISTS OF 1641. 101 

moving spirit; nay, that if, in these courts, any 
voice was for more than ordinarily severe measures, 
it was sure to be his. (Gardiner: Personal 
History, I., 6). But perhaps the worst charge 
against Laud in this connection is the alleged 
fact, that to gain the power of suppressing the 
nonconformists and otherwise securing the 
restoration of a pure and catholic church accord- 
ing to his own ideal. Laud did not hesitate to 
encourage in the king those absolute principles, 
which, if he had prevailed, instead of the Parlia- 
ment, would have been fatal to the liberties of 
the English people." (Schaff-Herzog Encyclo- 
paedia, Vol. IL, pp. 1284, 1285). 

Under such conditions the Baptists, the most 
despised of all the people of England, could not 
be expected to preserve records. 

Their doctrines were misrepresented and ma- 
ligned. Here is a sample: 

" To these doctrines you may join their prac- 
tice. The seditious pamphlets, the tumultuous 
rising of rude multitudes threatening blood and 
destruction; the preaching of the cobblers, felt- 
makers, tailors, grooms and women; the choosing 
of any place for God's service but the church; the 
night-meetings of naked men and women; the 
licentiousness of spiritual marriages without legal 
form; these things if they be not looked into will 
bring us in time to community of wives, commu- 
nity of goods, and destruction of all." (A Short 
History of the Anabaptists of High and Low Ger- 
many, pp. 55, 56. London, 1642). 

It is to be observed, however, that very soon 



102 DID THEY DIP ? 

after there was liberty of conscience, or rather 
toleration, some Calvinistic Baptist Churches of 
London adopted one of the most famous Confes- 
sions of Faith in the world. It stands only second 
to the Westminster Confession in importance 
among the Dissenting Churches of England. For- 
mulas of doctrines like those contained in this 
confession are matters of growth. The presump- 
tion is that these doctrines had long lived in the 
hearts of these people before they were expressed 
in this formal manner. There is no indication 
from this confession and its history of any change 
of mind on the subject of baptism. There is not 
a trace of information, from friend or foe, that 
during the adoption of this confession there 
was any discussion on the subject of dipping. We 
know that the Presbyterians, in their assembly, 
were badly divided on the subject of dipping. 
But if there were such dissensions among the 
Baptists it is passing strange that we have no inti- 
mation of them, nor were there any protests. 
These seven churches presented this as their unan- 
imous opinion to Parliament, and published it 
broadcast to the world. The presumption is alto- 
gether in favor of the supposition that the Bap- 
tists had long been immersionists, and that this 
was the honest expression of their sentiments, and 
it will take powerful arguments, which have not 
been presented, to set aside these convictions. 

I give the XL. Article of the "Confession of 
Faith of those Churches which are commonly 
(though falsely) called Anabaptists:" 

"That the way and manner of dispensing this 



THE BAPTISTS OF 164I. 103 

ordinance is dipping or plunging the body under 
water; it being a signe, must answer the thing 
signified, which is, that interest the Saints have in 
the death, burial and resurrection of Christ: and 
that as certainly as the body is buried under 
water, and rises again, so certainly shall the bodies 
of the Saints be raised by the power of Christ in 
the day of the resurrection, to reigne with Christ." 

(P. 20). 

There is a note appended, as follows: 
" The word Baptize signifies to dip or plunge 
yet so as convenient garments be both upon the 
administrator and subject, with all modesty." 

It is necessary for Dr. Whitsitt to prove that 
these eight Baptist Churches of London that 
signed the confession of 1644 and the 54 Baptist 
Churches in England that Neal and other authors 
mention all originated with John Smyth or with 
the Jessey Church. This has never been proved, 
and Dr. Whitsitt attempts no proof. If the Jessey 
records are a forgery, as I think, and if John 
Smyth was immersed, there is absolutely no foun- 
dation for this theory. If I should admit the 
authenticity of the Jessey Church records, which 
I do not, and that John Smyth was sprinkled, 
of which there is not a line of proof, even then Dr. 
Whitsitt's case is in no wise made out. He must 
prove that every one of these churches originated 
from one or the other of these sources. The one 
which did not so originate might have practiced 
immersion, and as Dr. Whitsitt has affirmed a uni- 
versal negative this would be fatal to his argu- 
ment. As a matter of fact, he has not proved that 



101 DID THEY DIP ? 

even one of the London churches had such an 
origin, much less any of the other churches of 
England. 

But we have positive ^testimony against this 
theory. William Kififin, who certainly knew de- 
clared: " It is well known to many, and especi- 
ally TO OURSELVES, THAT OUR CONGREGATIONS 
WERE ERECTED AND FRAMED ACCORDING TO THE 

RULE OF Christ, before we heard of any 
REFORMATION." As this was written in 1645, "^ 
one can doubt that Kiffin was an immersionist, 
and this statement puts the question forever at 
rest. 

As far back as 1589 Some, who wrote at that 
date, declares there were Anabaptist Churches in 
London. They doubtless had existed long before 
this. The words of Some are: 

"To preach without an external calling, is Ana- 
baptisticall. The consequents of such preaching 
are the deprauing of the holy scriptures, abusing 
of the Auditors, disturbing both of Church and 
commonwealth. The Anabaptisticall conuenticles 
in London, and other places, are sufificient proof 
of this." (Chapter 7). 

These Anabaptists of whom Some was writing 
were not Dutch or Germans, but native born. 
Some says: 

" If any shall reply, that many Papists, Ana- 
baptists, etc., haue bene bredde in our Vniuersi- 
ties: my answere is, that the goodliest gardens 
haue some weedes in them. Cham was in Noahs 
arke, as well as Sem; Ismael in Abrahams house, 
as wel as Isaac: Judas in Christes companye as 



THE BAPTISTS OF 164I. 105 

well as Peter: and yet Noahs arke, Abrahams 
house, and Christes companie were singularlie to 
bee accounted of. The wheate field may not be 
destroyed, because of the tares: Nor the vine, be- 
cause of a few wilde grapes; nor the garden, be- 
cause of the weedes. The tares, wilde grapes, and 
weedes, are wisely to be remoued by the husband- 
man and gardener," etc. 

But I have still other testimony as to the 
origin of these churches. Hanserd KnoUys knew 
all about the origin of these London churches. 
He was intimately connected with the Baptists, or 
Anabaptists. 

I have before me a book, which seems to have 
escaped the eye of all other writers on this sub- 
ject. It knows nothing about Blount nor Black- 
lock, nor the trip to Holland, nor the introduction 
of immersion. It tells in simple language the 
story of the planting of these London Baptist 
Churches in the days of persecution before 1641. 
The title of this book is: * A Moderate Answer 
Unto Dr. Bastwick's Book Called ' Independency 
Not God's Ordinance.' Wherein is declared the 
manner how some Churches in this city were 
gathered, and upon what tearmes their members 
were admitted; that so both the Dr. and the 
Reader may judge how near some Believers who 
walk together in the Fellowship of the Gospell 
do come in their practice to the Apostolicall rules 
which are propounded by the Dr. as God's 
Method in gathering Churches and Admitting 
Members. By Hanserd KnoUys. London, 1645." 
Of course, such a book is authoritative and worth 
a thousand guesses. Knollys says: 



106 DID THEY DIP ? 

" I shall now take the liberty to declare, what 
I know by mine own experience to be the prac- 
tice of some Churches of God in this City. That 
so far both the Dr. and the Reader may judge 
how near the Saints, who walk in the fellowship 
of the Gospell, do come to their practice, to these 
Apostolicall rules and practice propounded by the 
Dr. as God's method in gathering churches, 
and admitting Members, I say that I know by 
mine own experience (having walked with them), 
that they were thus gathered, viz.: Some godly 
and learned men of approved gifts and abilities 
for the Ministrie, being driven out of the Coun- 
tries where they lived by the persecution of the 
Prelates, came to sojourn in this great City, and 
preached the word of God both publikely and 
from house to house, and daily in the Temple, 
and in every house they ceased not to teach and 
preach Jesus Christ: and some of them have 
dwelt in their own hired houses, and received 
all that came in unto them, preaching the King- 
dom of God, and teaching those things which 
concern the Lord Jesus Christ. And when many 
sinners were converted by their preaching of the 
Gospell, some of them believers, consorted with 
them, and of professors a great many, and of the 
chief women not a few. And the condition which 
those Preachers', both publikely and privately pro- 
pounded to the people, unto whom they preached, 
upon which they were to be admitted into the 
Church was Faith, Repentance, and Baptism, and 
none other. And whosoever (poor as well as 
rich, bond as well as free, servants as well as 



THE BAPTISTS OF 164I. 107 

Masters), did make a profession of their Faith 
in Christ Jesus, and would be baptized with water, 
in the Name of the Father, Sonne, and Holy 
Spirit, were admitted Members of the Church; 
but sucb as did not believe, and would not be 
baptized, they would not admit into Church com- 
munion. This hath been the practice of some 
Churches of God in this City, without urging or 
making any particular covenant with Members 
upon admittance, which I desire may be examined 
by the Scripture cited in the Margent, and then 
compared with the Doctor's three conclusions 
from the same Scriptures, whereby it may appear 
to the judicious Reader, how near the Churches 
some of them come to the practice of the Apostles 
rule, and practice of the primitive churches, both in 
gathering and admitting members." (Pp. 24, 25). 

Nothing can be plainer than that these London 
churches were not organized on the plan indi- 
cated by Dr. Whitsitt. 

As to the practice of dipping among the Ana- 
baptists of England there has been no difference 
of opinion among historians, till of late, a few con- 
troversial writers have affirmed that they practiced 
sprinkling. I will let the historians speak for 
themselves. 

Neal, in whose hands the Baptists placed their 
gathered material for a history, says: 

"Their confession consisted of 52 articles and 
is strictly Calvinistical in the doctrinal part, and 
according to the independent discipline, it con- 
fines the subjects of baptism to grown Christians 
and the mode to immersion. The advocates of 



108 DID THEY DIP ? 

this doctrine were for the most part of the 
meanest of the people; their preachers were 
generally illiterate and went about the country 
making proselytes of all who would submit to 
immersion. * * * The people of this per- 
suasion were most exposed to the public resent- 
ments, because they would hold communion with 
none but such as had been dipped. All must 
pass under the cloud before they could be 
received into their churches; and the same 
narrow spirit prevails too generally among them 
to this day." (History of the Puritans, Vol. III., 
pp. 174-176). 

Prof. Vedder says: 

"Furthermore, though this Confession is the 
first to define baptism in explicit terms as immer- 
sion, this was not a novel idea among the Bap- 
tists. Indeed the practice of immersion had not 
yet died out of the English Church, though it 
was rapidly becoming uncommon." (Short His- 
tory of the Baptists, p. 116). 

And again he says: 

"Dr. Whitsitt, as I pointed out in my article in 
the Examiner some weeks ago, seemed to me to 
make a broader inference than his facts warranted 
when he said in effect that no English Baptists 
immersed before 164 1. I think he will see that 
he must modify that statement." ( Westcrii Recorder, 
Sept. 24, 1896). 

The Rev. W. H. Pinnock, LL. D., an Episco- 
palian, in speaking of the English Anabaptists of 
this whole period, says: 

" They rebaptized their disciples, whence their 



THE BAPTISTS OF 164I. 109 

name; and taught that the baptism of infants was 
invalid; they also rejected aspersion, holding im- 
mersion to be the only valid form of baptism. 
From these sprang shortly after the sect of the 
Baptists." (History of the Reformation of the 
English Church, p. 153. London, 1857). 

Henry M. Mason, M. A., says: 

"The Baptists of England were derived from, 
and originally adopted the doctrine of, the Ger- 
man and Dutch Anabaptists. They declined, 
however, in process of time, from the principles 
of their ancestors, and hold, in common with 
them, only the administration of baptism by im- 
mersion and the refusal of that rite to any but 
adults." (A Compend of Ecclesiastical History, 

p. 337)- 

J. B. Marsden, M. A., says: 

"Baptists, or Anabaptists, so called (from Gr. ana, 
again, and baptizo, to wash or plunge) because 
they again baptize those adults who, in their in- 
fancy, have once received baptism. But they 
deny the validity of infant baptism (on which ac- 
count they are also- termed, sometimes, Anti- 
paedo-Baptists), and, therefore, reject the charge 
of anabaptism, and consider the word itself re- 
proachful. By the older writers they are occa- 
sionally designated Cata-Baptists, an epithet of 
nearly similar import. They themselves adopt 
the name of Baptists. 

"They differ from other Christian Churches upon 
two points: First, as to the mode in which bap- 
tism ought to be administered; and, secondly, as 
to the persons who are qualified for the reception 



110 DID THEY DIP ? 

of the rite. Of these, however, the second is by- 
far the most important question." ( History of the 
Christian Churches and Sects from the Earliest 
Ages of Christianity, Vol. I., p. ']']^. 

Robert Howard, M. A., says: 

"In point of church polity, the Baptists re- 
mained Independents. But they held that they 
were justified in forming themselves into a sepa- 
rate communion on these grounds: First, for the 
stricter maintenance of Calvinistic doctrines; 
secondly, for the exercise of a stricter discipline; 
and, thirdly, for the practice of a mode of baptism 
in stricter accordance with the words of Script- 
ure and the practice of the Apostolic age." (The 
Church of England and Other Religious Com- 
munions, p. 42). 

David Bogue, D. D., and James Bennett, D. D., 
say: 

" It is sufficiently manifest by their name, that 
this denomination of Dissenters differ from others 
on the subject of baptism. They believe, that the 
original word, which the New Testament employs 
to express this rite, conveys the idea of immer- 
sion, or plunging the whole body under water: 
hence they conclude that sprinkling, affusion, or 
pouring of water, is not baptizing. To this distin- 
guishing sentiment and practice concerning the 
mode, they add one which relates to the proper 
subjects of baptism." (The History of Dissenters, 
Vol. I., p. 183). 

W. J. E. Bennett, vicar of Froome - Selwood, 
says: 

"Wherein then, proceeding from this, do the 



THE BAPTISTS OF 1641. Ill 

Anabaptists raise their cry of objection to the 
Church, and separate from her? They raise it 
upon this ground, that it is not lawful i7i any case 
to baptize otherwise than by immersion. The 
Anabaptists say, all persons ought to be im- 
mersed. The Church says the same; but the 
Church goes on to say, but in case of children 
being weak, it shall suffice to pour the water. No, 
rejoin the Anabaptists; it does not suffice. Both 
agree upon the principle. But the one separates 
from the other on the ground of permitting a cer- 
tain exception. The whole question then narrows 
itself into this: Is it permissible to baptize by 
pouring water, or does such an act invalidate 
baptism altogether? In other words, is it as much 
the essence of the baptism, that it should be per- 
formed by immersion, as it is that the water 
should be used at all?" (The Church's Broken 
Unity. Anabaptism, Vol. II., p. 63). 

Mr. Bennett devotes large space to a general 
discussion of the Anabaptists, going very fully 
into their history and doctrines, but he nowhere 
intimates that any of them ever practiced sprink- 
ling. 

Masson says: 

" In spite of much persecution, continued even 
after the Long Parliament met, the Baptists of 
these congregations propagated their opinions 
with such zeal that by 1644 the sect had attained 
considerably larger dimensions. In that year 
they counted seven leading congregations in 
London, and forty-seven in the rest of England, 
besides which they had many adherents in the 



112 DID THEY DIP ? 

army. Although all sorts of impieties were 
attributed to them on hearsay, they differed in 
reality from the Independents mainly on the sub- 
ject of baptism. They objected to the baptism 
of infants, and they thought immersion or dipping 
under water the proper mode of baptism; except 
in these points and what they might involve they 
were substantially at one with the Congregation- 
alists. This they made clear by the publication, 
in 1644, of a Confession of their Faith in 52 
Articles, a document which, by its orthodoxy in 
all essential matters, seems to have shamed the 
more candid of their opponents." (Life of John 
Milton, Vol. II., p. 585). 

W. M. Blackburne, D. D., Methodist, says: 

•* The Baptists were differentiated from the 
Dissenters early in the seventeenth century by 
holding that immersion is essential to baptism, 
and that believers and not infants are the proper 
subjects of it. They rebaptized believers who had 
not been immersed." (History of the Christian 
Church, p. 622). 

Alexander Balfour, Edinburgh, gives a very full 
account of the Baptists and Anabaptists of Eng- 
land. He says: 

"The Particular Baptists are those who enter- 
tain no more of the tenets of the ancient Anabap- 
tists than the administration of the ordinance of 
baptism by immersion and the refusal of it to in- 
fants; in everything else they resemble the relig- 
ion of other Calvinists." (Anti-Paedobaptism 
Unveiled; or, An Inquiry i^jto the Origin and 
Progress of the Baptists, p. 87). 



THE BAPTISTS OF 164I. 113 

Dr. W. H. King, London, who has made a very 
extensive investigation of the pamphlets in the 
King George collection, says: 

"In connection with this controversy I have 
carefully examined the titles of the pamphlets in 
the first three volumes of this catalogue, more than 
7,000 in number, and have read every pamphlet 
which has seemed by its title to refer to the sub- 
ject of baptism, or the opinions and practices of 
Baptists, with this result: that I can affirm, with 
the most unhesitating confidence, that in these 
volumes there is 7iot a sente7ice or a hint from which 
it can be inferred that the Baptists ge?ierally, or any 
section of them, or even any i?idividual Baptist, held 
any other opinion than that i^nmersion is the o?ily true 
and Scriptural method of baptism., either before the 
year 1641 or after it. It must be remembered that 
these are the earliest pamphlets, and cover the 
period from the year 1640 to 1646." (^The West- 
ern Recorder, June 4, 1896). 

Dr. Schaff says: 

"The mode of baptism was no point of dispute 
betw^een Anabaptists and Pedobaptists in the six- 
teenth century. The Roman Church provides 
for immersion and pouring as equally valid. Lu- 
ther preferred immersion and prescribed it in his 
baptismal service. In England immersion was 
the normal mode down to the middle of the seven- 
teenth century. It w^as adopted by the English 
and American Baptists as the only mode." (His- 
tory of the Christian Church, Vol. VII., p. 79). 

He then goes on to discuss the Anabaptists of 
the Continent, to which we refer in another place. 



114 DID THEY DIP ? 

J. Rawson Lumbysays: 

"The first notice of the Anabaptists (after- 
wards known as Baptists) as a distinct commun- 
ion is about the time of Luther. The sect had 
its origin in Germany, and, as its name implies, 
differed from the other reformed churches in the 
opinions held by its members on the subject of 
baptism. The Anabaptists maintained that only 
those who personally professed their faith in 
Christ were proper recipients of that sacrament, 
and they also considered that baptism should be 
administered not by sprinkling, but by immersion. 
In most of the other points of their teaching the 
Anabaptists were exactly at one with the Inde- 
pendents, but they did not make Independency 
the most prominent feature of their doctrines." 
(Compendium of English Church History, p. 16). 

Mosheim, one of the oldest and most reliable 
historians, has much to say of the Anabaptists. 
He says: 

** The origin of the sect, which, from their repeti- 
tion of the baptism received in other communities, 
are called A?iabaptists but who are also denominat- 
ed Me?i7io?iites, from the celebrated man to whom 
they owe a large share of their present pros- 
perity, is involved in much obscurity." He calls 
them ** Catabaptists " or " incurable heretics^ 
He then goes on to say of the English Baptists: 
"They have almost nothing in common with the 
other Anabaptists except they baptize only adults 
and immerse totally in the water whenever they 
administer the ordinance." (Institutes of Eccle- 
siastical History, Vol. III., pp. 198-221). 



THE BAPTISTS OF 164I. 115 

E. T. Hiscox, D. D., the scholarly Baptist 
author, says: 

" It is precisely as I had supposed and had 
said and publicly stated, namely, that Dr. Whit- 
sitt was mistaken as to his sources of information 
in the famous pamphlets. It is no sin to be mis- 
taken; but this mistake will doubtless somewhat 
shake public confidence in Dr. VVhitsitt's reliabil- 
ity as a student of history. And the peculiar and 
unaccountable way in which the Doctor has 
reached this point through an Encyclopaedia and 
a Pedobaptist journal, rather than through Baptist 
channels, and without conference with Baptist 
brethren, makes his friends marvel, and is yet to 
be explained." {\Ve stern Recorder, June i8, 1896). 

Prof. T. Harwood Pattison, Rochester Theolog- 
ical Seminary, says: "There is in the article a 
good deal more of this conjectural history. Dr. 
Whitsitt seems sometimes to be indebted to his 
imagination for his facts." (The London Freeman, 
April 17, 1896). 

Dr. George C. Lorimer, who has given much 
attention to Baptist history, said in an address 
Sept. 14, 1896, before the students of Newton 
Theological Institution: 

I insist that it is due our Baptist Churches that their 
action on the world's progress should not be ignored. As a 
rule, they do not receive the recognition they deserve. Dr. 
Dexter in his "True Story of John Smythe " has, let us 
believe unintentionally, put them in an entirely false light; 
and his representation that Edward Barber originated the 
practice of immersion in England, and that before the 
publication of his book (1641) the Baptists poured and 
sprinkled, is, to put it mildly, incorrect. I have just 
returned from the British Museum, where I went over the 
documents which are supposed to substantiate such a view, 
and I solemnly declare that no such evidence exists. It 



116 DID THEY DIP ? 

cannot be made out from the pamphlets of Edward Barber, 
Praise-God Barebones, Dr. Featly, or of those signed A. R., 
or by Thomas Killcops. In the title page of the first we 
have the design of the treatise thus announced: "Of 
Baptism, or dipping, wherein is clearly shewed that the 
Lord Christ ordained dipping for those only that profess 
repentance and faith." Here is the key to the whole con- 
troversy, and to the misapprehensions that exist. These 
writers were either assailing or defending infant baptism, 
and the newness of the ordinance to Englishmen was not 
the mode but the subject; though Dexter observes this by 
introducing into o. e of the citations the word " dipping " 
which is not in the original. Dr. Featly, in his rancorous 
pamphlet in which he reports a controversy with the Ana- 
baptists held at Southwark in 1642, admits that they im- 
merse, and writes about it not as something new, and 
declares that they have been showing their " shining head 
and speckled skin " near his residence for more than twenty 
years. 

I accuse no man of misrepresentation, but I am sure 
many rush to a conclusion and pain multitudes of good peo- 
ple by their garbled quotations. I, at least, may be allowed 
to express my dissent: The Baptists of E7igla7id did im- 
merse before 1641, even as they did oil the Continent. This 
I claim on the authority of the George III. pamphlets in the 
British Museum, and from the fact that even the Church of 
England, in young King Edward's time, directed that babes 
should be dipped. These humble people deserve to be 
faithfully dealt with, for they have been history makers of 
no mean importance. They dared the face of kings and 
taught the world the right of men to worship God according 
to the dictates of conscience; they turned their face against 
oppression of every kind, and were the harbingers of this 
age. 

Dr. Joseph Angus, President of Regents Park 
College, London, England, a very scholarly Bap- 
tist, says: 

During this period, it is objected, very little is said about 
immersion, and the silence of the writers on the mode is said 
to be deeply significant. But it is overlooked that in that 
age immersion was the generally accepted mode of baptism 
in England. The Prayer Book has all along ordered the 
child " to be dipped warily " in the water. The practice of 
dipping was familiar in the days of Henry VIII., and both 
Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth were dipped in their 
childhood. In that century it was not necessary to lecture 
on the meaning of the word, or to insist on the mode of bap- 



THE BAPTISTS CF 164I. 117 

tizing, which is still described in the English service as 
" dipping." I remember a clergyman who resolved to carry- 
out the instructions of the Rubric. The child was stripped 
and dipped. " I did it once," he reported, " but I resolved 
never to do it again!" Once change a positive institution in 
one particular, and the whole may be robbed of its force and 
beauty. 

That there was no such delay in forming Baptist Churches 
as our American friends have supposed, is proved by the 
dates of the formation of a number of them. Churches were 
formed, chapels built and doctrines detined long before 
1641, and others, down to the end of that century, owed 
nothing probably to the discussions of that year. 

The following churches formed in the years mentioned 
still remain : Braintree, Eythorne, Su ton, all in 1550; War- 
rington, 1522; Crowle and Epworth, both 1597; Bridgewatcr, 
Oxford, and Sadmore, 16uO;Bristol (Broadmead), 1640; King, 
Stanley, Newcastle, Kilmington (Devon), Bedford, Sutton, 
Cirencester, Commercial-street (London), i^incoln, Dorches- 
ter, and Hamsterley, 1683; Lyme Regis, Chipping Sodbury, 
Upottery, Boston, etc , 1650 to 1658. 

Many others that belong to similar dates have since 
become extinct through change of population and other 
causes. Most of these churches hold the common faith, and 
most of them have received it without special r-. ference to 
the creed of 1641. Dates and particulars of more churches 
may be seen in any recent number of the Baptist Handbook, 
published by the Baptist Union. 

But there is another kind of evidence even more deci- 
sive, showing that "the immersion of believers" was the 
common faith and practice of our fathers. I refer to the 
books published by them and against them in the century 
to which 1641 belongs. 

The unanimous testimony of these historians is 
a powerful argument for dipping. Commencing 
with the earlier portion of the seventeenth cent- 
ury, and to some extent during the sixteenth 
century, a great controversy sprung up in Eng- 
land on the subject of baptism. For the most 
part, infant baptism was the question involved. 
Beginning with 1641 to the end of the century, I 
suppose fifty times more was written on the sub- 
ject of infant baptism than there was on the sub- 
ject of dipping. Frequently whole books were 



118 DID THEY DIP ? 

written on baptism, and dipping was not men- 
tioned, and often in these books on infant baptism 
dipping was taken for granted. Usually when the 
act of baptism was discussed it had reference to 
infant sprinkling as an innovation. Waiving at 
present, for special discussion, some of the strong- 
est statements in favor of immersion, I shall refer 
to certain writers who lived in those times, in 
proof that dipping was received among the Bap- 
tists as the act of baptism. This will appear from 
the writings of both Baptists and Pedobaptists. 

The first book I quote is *' An Anabaptist Ser- 
mon which was preached at the Re-baptizing of a 
Brother at the new or holy Jordan, as they call it, 
near Bow, or Hackney River; together with the 
manner how they used to perform their Anabap- 
tisticall Ceremonies. London, 1643." It is worth 
while to note that this report was written by an 
enemy, who refers to the Anabaptists as " they." 
It will also be noted that it describes a past event, 
and that the baptism was at some considerable 
time before 1643, for the writer says that it was 
"the manner they use to perform their Anabap- 
tisticall ceremonies." This baptism by dipping 
was not a new thing, according to this enemy, for 
it was their "manner" or custom. Indeed, he 
mentions former persecutions which undoubtedly 
took place before 164 1. The account says: 

" Some say our Religion is cleane contrary to 
the Protestant profession, but such are cleane out 
of the way, but if we should be persecuted againe 
by bishops as formerly we have bin, and would 
run cleane out of England unto Amsterdam, but 



THE BAPTISTS OF 1641, 119 

we are all cleane people, full of purity of the 
Spirit; our sins are but motes in God's eyes, but 
• our brothers sinnes are beams that have so put 
out the sight of his Divine Justice, that He can- 
not or will not see our small iniquities." 

He takes dipping as a matter of course. He 
says: 

** For it is impossible to wash them white or 
cleane; but wee that are brethren of the elect; 
we may wash ourselves in a River from the spots 
of our Carnality in every River, as Bow River, 
Hackney River, and other Rivers are to us a cleane 
Jordan, wherein we may baptize one another as 
we meane to do this day our late lost brother." 

(P. 2). 

We have a book before us, "The Summe of a 
Conference at Terling in Essex. Januarie ii. 1643," 
which was held between three "ministers " and 
two "Catabaptists." This book is edited by John 
Stalham, one of the ministers. He says of the 
Anabaptists: 

" The Catabaptists excuses, that the chiefe Re- 
spondent was too weake, for such an encounter. 
* * * Secondly then, my request is: That 
the practice of Antiquitie may fully be cleared, 
and laid before them: what it was, touching this 
subject of Baptisme, and what therein was agree- 
able to the rule of the Scripture, what not, for 
they have boasted much; as if they had all An- 
tiquitie on their side." (Pp. 4-7). 

The Baptists were called in this one-sided dis- 
cussion Catabaptists, or dippers; and it is clear 
that this dipping was not regarded as a novelty, 



120 DID THEY DIP ? 

because it is nowhere so designated, and the Ana- 
baptists " boasted" that "they had all Antiquitie 
on their side:" 

John Ollyffe, Rector of Aimer, 1644, says: 
" Thus I hope I have made out that there is no 
necessity of baptizing by Dipping to be proved 
by Scripture. And nobody pretends, as I know, 
the Necessity of any particular determinate." 
(A Brief Defence of Infant Baptism, with an Ap- 
pendix, wherein is shewed that it is not necessary 
that Baptism should be administered by Dipping. 

p. 67). 

Then he gives a number of "inferences" why 
he thinks sprinkling may be sustained against 
the Anabaptists, but not one to the effect that 
dipping is " a new invention." 

Ch. Blackwood, 1644, was a Baptist. He says: 

"I prove the proposition that the Baptisme of 
Christ is dipping, three waies: 

" I. From the Greek lexicon.' 

'* 2. From the difference twixt Baptizing and 
Sprinkling in Scripture. 

'* 3. That Baptisme signifies no other thing than 
Dipping, appeares from the proportion and lively 
resemblance twixt dipping into the water and 
rising up again; Dipping signifieth death, and 
Buriall with Christ, and rising up above the water, 
Resurrection with Christ. Rom. vi. 3, 4." (The 
Storming of Antichrist, pp. i, 2). 

Blackwood had never heard of dipping as a 
new thing. 

Thomas Edwards, 1645, published some very 
scandalous books against the Baptists. They are 



THE BAPTISTS OF 164I. 121 

full of bitterness. While some of the statements 
are infamous they demonstrate that the Baptists 
were dippers. I could quote many places from 
his books in proof of this declaration, but one is 
sufficient. Edwards says: 

" I here declare myself, that I could wish with 
all my heart there were a publike Disputation, 
even in the point of Paedobaptism and of Dipping, 
between some of the Anabaptists and some of 
our Ministers; and had I an interest in the Houses 
to prevaile to obtaine it (which I speak not as to 
presume of any such power, being so meane and 
weak a man), it should be one of the first Petitions 
I would put up to the Honorable Houses for a 
publike Disputation, as was at Zurich, namely, 
that both Houses would give leave to the Ana- 
baptists to chuse for themselves such a number 
of their ablest men, and the Assembly leave to 
chuse an equall number for them, and that by 
Authority of Parliament publike Notaries sworne, 
might be appointed to write down all, some mem- 
bers of both Houses present to see to the Peace 
kept, and to be Judges of the faire play and 
liberty given the Anabaptists, and that there 
might be severall dayes of Disputation leave 
to the utmost given the Anabaptists to say 
what they could, and upon such faire and free de- 
bates it should be found the Anabaptists to be in 
the Truth, then the Parliament not only to Toler- 
ate them, but to Establish and settle their way 
throughout the whole Kingdome., but if upon Dis- 
putation and debate, the Anabaptists should be 
found in an Error (as I am confident they would) 



122 DID THEY DIP ? 

that then the Parliament should forbid all Dip- 
ping, and take some severe course with all Dip- 
pers, as the Senate of Zurich did after the ten 
severall Disputations allowed the Anabaptists." 
(The Third Part of Gangraena, p. 177). 

Here i% the double admission that the Anabap- 
tists of Zurich and of England were dippers. 

John Brinsley, 1645, violently opposed "that 
spreading Gangrene of Anabaptism, which, unless 
timely preuented, may prove fatall to the whole 
body both of the Church and State." (The Doc- 
trine and Practice of Paedobaptism, Asserted and 
Vindicated, preface). Their dipping was a mat- 
ter of course. He says of them: 

"The maine businesse we have to deale with, 
and that which I chiefly aimed at, when I fell up- 
on this subject, is touching the Baptisnie of Infaiits ; 
whether they, or any of them, may be baptized. 
Here the Anabaptists and we are at variance. We 
allow it to some; they deny it to all. Whence it 
is that they are called by the name both of Ana- 
baptists and Catabaptists ; because they oppose the 
Baptisme of all Infants, as a thing not onely incon- 
venient, but unlawfull; and in case any of them 
bee baptized in their infancie, they looke upon 
that Baptisme as a nullity, and so impose upon 
them a Rebaptization when they come to yeares 
of discression." (P. 9). 

Fredericke Spanhenius, 1646, wrote a history of 
the Anabaptists from 1521 to the date of his book. 
It was written in English for the English people. 
His testimony on dipping is conclusive. He 
says: 



THE BAPTISTS OF 164I. 123 

"And I shall consider this division, not their 
opinions alone, which all the Anabaptists or Cata- 
baptists have anciently maintained, or which all of 
them doe maintaine at this day; but those also 
which many of them, or at least some of them, 
have anciently, or do at present defend; that so 
the partition may be the more perfect, and that 
I may present the Reader with the whole body 
of their Errors, w^hich they have also erred, and 
yet do erre." • (P. 27). 

Mr. Richardson, 1647, i^ his reply to Featley, 
says: 

" We confess that when any one is to be rebap- 
tized at the water's side the administrator goeth to 
prayer suitable to the occasion, and after both go 
into the water and useth the words, Matt. 28, part 
of the 19th verse; and coming forth again they go 
to prayer, and also return thanks to God." (Some 
Brief Considerations, p. 4). 

Jahn Tombes, B. D., one of the best posted 
men of his day, says: 

" But now instead of it [believer's baptism], 
there is used the corrupt innovation of infant 
sprinkling, a fruitless or rather pernicious rite 
to the souls of many v/ho are hardened in deadly 
presumption, as thereby sufficiently made Chris- 
tians, and of all influence on the Church of God, 
by taking ignorant and unclean persons, even the 
dregs of a nation, to be church members. * * * 
The most eminent opposition to the work of restor- 
ing the right use of water baptism, necessary 
to the orderly forming of Christian Churches, 
hath been by their learned men, who maintain 



124 DID THEY DIP ? 

still by their agency, and colabored pretenses, 
the corrupt innovations of infant baptism." ( Anti- 
Paedobaptism, The Introduction). 

Richard Baxter wrote a great number of con- 
troversial books. After having looked over the 
most that he has written on the subject of bap- 
tism, I find that he was violently opposed to the 
Anabaptists; that he opposed their dipping in 
many ways; that he declared that it was a breach 
of the commandments; but he does not say that 
it was a new thing. He says: 

" My sixth argument shall be against the usual 
manner of their baptizing, as it is by dipping over 
head in a river or other cold water. This is known 
to be the ordinary way of the Anabaptists." 
(Plain Scripture Proofs, pp. 134-137). 

Richard Carpenter, 1653, wrote " The Anabap- 
tist Washt and Washt, and Shrunk in the Wash- 
ing," in which he says: 

** Because God looked upon the End in every 
practicall touch of his Pozi'cf, which E?id is the 
cJiiefe in all the course, and the first intentionally , 
though executively the last: and Grace, the Gift 
of God, is an attendant upon the TJmig signified. 
And therefore. Baptism given with a threefold 
Rjnmersion, doth not more justify, than Baptism 
conferred by one ImiJtersioji or Inspersion: and 
yet the first is more expresse and visible sig/u- 
of Sacramentall Grace ; because it washeth more 
perfectly; and furthermore, adumbrates the most 
blessed Trinity, in whose most blessed Name the 
Baptisme is given." (Page 80). 

He not only does not say that baptism by dip- 



THE BAPTISTS OF 164I. " 125 

ping was a new thing, that the former Anabaptists 
were sprinklers, but he goes so far as to admit 
their baptism to be most impressive. 

John Reading, B. D., 1655, in his book ** Ana- 
baptism Routed," says: 

" Aiiabaptists not only deny believers' children 
baptism, as the Pelagians and Donatists did of 
old, but affirm. That dipping the whole body under 
water is so necessary, that without it none are 
truly baptized (as hath been said)." (Pp. 171, 
172). 

John Cragge, 1656, gives an account of a discus- 
sion between Henry Vaughn, M. A., and John 
Tombes. Tombes boldly claimed sprinkling an 
innovation and this was admitted by his oppo- 
nent. I read: 

** T. Here Mr. Tombes interrupted me, mid de- 
sired the people to take notice of my ingenious confes- 
sion, that baptism, was then practiced by plimgi7ig. He 
read also a passage out of Casaubons Annot. o?i the 
New Test, where he saith that baptizein denote th 
a plunging of the whole body, etc. Had he read out 
the passage he might have found how that great 
scholar affirmes this to be a slender Argumejit against 
such as OTily sprinkle at Baptisme : for, saith he, the 
vertue and efficacie of Baptisme co7isistes ?iot in that, 
meaning the manner of washing. 

"V. I shall satisfie the audetours herein anon; in 
the meantime I desire Answer to my Argument, the 
Analogic between circumcision and baptism being 
so evident in this place; but receiving none, I ad- 
dressed myself to the people, according to prom- 
ise, saying, that indeed it seemed to me that for 



126 DID THEY DIP ? 

some centuries of years that baptism was practiced 
by plunging. For sprinkling was first brought in 
use by occasion of the Clinicks (as Cyprian Epist. 
a Magnum states), being men which deferred their 
baptism till some extremitie of sickness, who then 
in such case were only sprinkled with water lest 
the plunging of their bodies might over offend 
them in that feeble desperate condition. 

"T. Here take notice that sprinkling took its rise 
from a corrupt custom. 

"V. Though plunging be confessed the most 
ancient way, yet is this no ground for this over- 
uncharitable speech of yours, in your sermon 
yesterday: That our baptism, meaning of infants, 
and by sprinkling, was but a nullitie, and mock- 
ery, which concludes ourselves, and all our An- 
cestours, even all in the Western Church for 1,500 
years, under damnation. 

" For the Church hath power upon the sight of 
any inconvenience, and for order and decencies 
sake, to alter the circumstances and externalls of 
any ordinance." (The Arraignment and Convic- 
tion of Anabaptism, pp. 5, 6). 

If immersion had been so recent a novelty such 
a discussion could hardly have taken place with- 
out some mention of it. 

Denne said in a discussion in 1656, with Mr. 
Gunning: 

"Dipping of infants was not only commanded 
by the Church of England, but also generally 
practiced in the Church of England till the year 
1600; yea, in some places it was practiced until 
the year 164 1 until the fashion altered, * * * 



THE BAPTISTS OF 164I. 127 

I can show Mr. Baxter an old man in London 
who has labored in the Lord's pool many years; 
converted by his ministry more men and women 
than Mr. Baxter hath in his parish; yea, when he 
hath labored a great part of the day in preaching 
and reasoning, his reflection hath been (not a 
sackporrit or a candle), but to go into the water 
and baptize converts." (A Contention for Truth, 
p. 40). 

Here are fourteen writers who were all alive in 
1641, and for many years before, who wrote in 
fifteen years and less of that date, some of them 
only a year or two away, all of them engaged in 
the controversy and wrote books or tracts. Some 
of them were friends and some of them were ene- 
mies. They were thoroughly posted on the sub- 
ject and several of them engaged in public 
debates on the subject. It is certain that if 
immersion had been an invention of recent date 
some of those men would have made a powerful 
point against their opponents on this subject. 
And it is equally certain that we would have 
found some defense in the writings of these Bap- 
tists. These opponents did bring serious charges 
against dipping; they said it was opposed to the 
sixth and seventh commandments, but never that 
it was a new invention. This is a strong argument 
when we remember that these men were eye wit- 
nesses and participants in the discussion of bap- 
tism. 

There is not a line, which I have discovered in 
English literature, written before 1641, which will 
go to prove that the English Anabaptists ever 



128 DID THEY DIP ? 

practiced sprinkling. The literature is not very 
abundant, but what there is of it is all on one side. 
I will present the testimony at hand and the reader 
may judge for himself. This will be the subject 
of the next chapter. 



THE ENGLISH BAPTISTS BEFORE 164I, 129 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE ENGLISH BAPTISTS BEFORE 164I. 

We have already seen that the Baptists before 
1641, while numerous, suffered greatly from per- 
secutions. They did not leave much literature, 
and so we must largely depend upon their ene- 
mies for references to them. We have enough 
proof, however, to show that they practiced dip- 
ping. 

A book was published in 1523 by the Anabap- 
tists in Holland, and translated and widely circu- 
lated in England, called the Sum of the Holy 
Scriptures. On baptism the author says: 

" So we are dipped under as a sign that we are, 
as it were, dead and buried, as Paul writes, Rom. 
6 and Col. 2. The life of man is a battle upon the 
earth, and in baptism we promise to strive like 
men. The pledge is given when we are plunged 
under the water. It is the same to God whether 
you are eighty years old when you are baptized, 
or twenty; for God does not consider howold you 
are, but with what purpose you receive baptism. 
He does not mind whether you are Jew or 
heathen, man or woman, nobleman or citizen, 
bishop or layman, but only he who with perfect 
faith and confidence comes to God, and struggles 
for eternal life, attains it as God has promised in 
the Gospel." (Armitage's History of the Baptists, 
p. 409). 

The old English Church Historian Fuller, tell- 



130 DID THEY DIP ? 

ing of November 24^ 1538, declares the Anabap- 
tists to be dippers. He says: 

"A match being now made up, by the Lord 
Cromwell's contrivance, betwixt King Henry and 
Lady Anne of Cleves, Dutchmen flocked faster 
than formerly into England. Many of them had 
active souls ; so that, whilst their hands were 
busied about their manufactures, their heads were 
also beating about points of divinity. Hereof 
they had many rude notions, too ignorant to 
manage themselves and too proud to crave the 
direction of others. Their minds had a bye- 
stream of activity more than what sufficed to 
drive on their vocation ; and this waste of their 
souls they employed in needless speculations, and 
soon after began to broach their strange opinions, 
being branded with the general name of Anabap- 
tists. These Anabaptists, for the main, are but 
' Donatists new dipped'; and this year their name 
first appears in our English Chronicles; for I read 
that four Anabaptists, three men and one woman, 
all Dutch, bare faggots at St. Paul's Cross, Nov. 
24th, and three days after a man and a woman of 
their sect were burned in Smithfield." (Church 
History of Britain, Vol. H., p. 97). 

In 1551 William Turner, "Doctor of Physick," 
" devysed" "A Preservative or triacle, agaynst the 
poyson of Pelagius, lately renued, & Styrred up 
agayn, by the furious secte of the Anabaptistes." 
This book undoubtedly settles the question that 
the Anabaptists of England practiced immersion. 
He repeatedly calls them Catabaptists. (See pp. 
19, 27, 2S, 49). The Anabaptist in making his 



THE ENGLISH BAPTISTS BEFORE 164I. 131 

argument for believers' immersion is represented 
as saying: 

"That such a lyke costome was once in our most 
holye relygyon, as was in colleges and in orders of 
relygyon, wher as none were admitted, before they 
had a year of probation, wher unto ye put this that 
they that came to be baptized, demanded, and 
desyred to be received to fellow ship of the 
Christians after dewe proofe of unfayned repent- 
ance, and thereby were called competentes. 
Yonge men, and wymen requyrynge baptysme: 
and then were taught the principles of the 
Christian faith and were fyrst called Catechumeni. 
And after those principles learned, were upon 
certayne solemne dayes, at two tymes of theyeare 
approved, therefore baptysed: which was upon 
Easter even, and Whit Sunday even: promysyng 
for themselves the observance of Gods law, with 
the renouncyng of the devell and the worlde in 
theys ovvne person without God-father or God- 
mother, seven score yeares longe: tyll Ignius, 
Byshop of Rome ordered to baptyse an infante, 
a god-father and god-mother answeryng for hym. 

"Where as ye say the lyke maner was in our 
most holy religion, as the scolers and religious 
men had: that none should be admitted, until 
they had been proved a yeare, and first called 
competentes, and then catechumeni. I marvayl 
what religion ye meane of: whether ye meane of 
the Popes religion, orChristes religion, or of the 
Catabaptistes relygion, which is your religion 
indede/' (Pp. 6, 7). 

There are two very significant statements in 



132 DID THEY DIP ? 

these passages; ( i) The Anabaptist quotes against 
his opponent the well known practice of immers- 
ing on the two days of Easter and Whit Sunday. 
(Schaff's Hist. Christian Church, Vol. II., p. 252). 
And (2) he says of the Anabaptist "of the Cata- 
baptistes [dippers] religion, which is your religion 
indede." This shows that they were certainly 
dippers. 

The following is conclusive: 

"And because baptism is a passive sacrament, 
& no man can baptise himselfe, but is baptised of 
another: & childes may be as wel dipped in to 
the water in ye name of Christ (which is the out- 
ward baptysm and as myche as one man can gyve 
another) even as olde folke: and when as they have 
the promise of salvation, as well as olde folkes & 
can receive the signe of the same as wel: there is 
no cause why that the baptyme of childes should 
be differed." (Pp. 39, 40). 

Here he says that the "olde folke" that the 
Anabaptist baptized are dipped. This is certainly 
sufificient. 

The Rev. John Fox, the distinguished author 
of the Book of Martyrs, was born in England, 
A. D. 1 5 17, and died April 15, 1587. The 
first complete English edition appeared in 1563. 
There is no doubt as to his testimony. He says: 

" There were some Anabaptists at this time in 
England, who came from Germany. Of these 
there were two sorts; the first only objected to 
the baptizing of children, and to the manner of it, 
by sprinkling instead of dipping. The other held 
many opinions, anciently condemned as heresies; 



THE ENGLISH BAPTISTS BEFORE 1641. 133 

they had raised a war in Germany, and had set up 
a new king at Munster; but all these were called 
Anabaptists, from their opposition to infant 
baptism, though it was one of the mildest 
opinions they held," (Alden Edition, p. 338). 

John Penry, who was well known in England, 
became a Baptist preacher, in 1586, and had been 
a very acceptable preacher before this in both of 
the Colleges, at Cambridge and Oxford. The 
Welsh historian says of him: 

" He was noted for piety, ministerial gifts, and 
zeal for the welfare of his countrymen. He was 
a native of Brecknockshire, and the first v^\vo pub- 
licly preached the gospel among the Baptists in 
Wales, after the reformation; which implied \.\\-dX 
the gospel was, more or less privately preached 
among the BaJDtists, on the Welsh mountains, 
during the whole reign of popery. He also wrote 
and published two books. Mr. Anthony Wood, 
an Episcopalian Minister, says that John Penry 
was the worst enemy the Church of England had 
through the whole reign of Queen Elizab'eth." 
(J. Davis' History of the Welsh Baptists, pp. 25, 
26). 

David Davies makes this statement: 

" The religious condition of Wales at this time 
was deplorable. The light which John Penry, 
the young Apostle of Wales in the sixteenth cent- 
ury, also a Baptist, who had been hanged like a 
criminal at Thomas-a- Watering, old Kent Road, 
on May 29th, 1593, at the early age of thirty- 
four, twenty-four years before the birth of Powell, 
had been almost extinguished, although tradi- 



134 DID THEY DIP? 

tions of his heroism lived on, as indeed they do 
to this day." (Vavasor Powell, The Baptist Evan- 
gelist of Wales in the seventeenth century, by 
David Davies, p. 14. London, 1896). 

Davies continues in a foot note: 

"Of John Penry the Rev. Joshua Thomas 
writes: ' Possibly he was the first that preached be- 
lievers' baptism openly and publicly to his coun- 
trymen since the Reformation. I am strongly 
inclined to think that he was the first that admin- 
istered that ordinance by immersion upon a pro- 
fession of faith in and about Olchon.' He also 
adds: 'A word in Ath. Oxon. * * * speaks out 
plainly that Penry was a notorious Anabaptist, of 
which party he was the Corypheus. * * * 
Strype owns that Mr. Penry expressed a great 
concern for his native country, and yet charged 
him with Anabaptistry.' " (History of the Baptist 
Churches in Wales, p. 43, MS. copy in the Li- 
brary of the Baptist College at Bristol). 

But this is not all the information we have in 
regard to Penry, though this would be sufficient 
for our purposes. Robert Some, 1589, says of 
him: 

" Master Penry, jumpeth with the Anabaptis- 
tical recusants in this Argument; his words are 
these. Where there is no true Christ whereunto 
men can be engraffed by Baptisme, there true 
Baptisme as touching the substance, cannot be 
gotten: for what baptisme is that, which is not 
ingraffing into the true Christ? but in Poperie 
there is no true Christ, whereunto men may be 
ingraffed, &c. I haue answered this and such 



THE ENGLISH BAPTISTS BEFORE 164I. 135 

like Arguments of Master Penries, Chap. 23 of my 
last Treatise: I rest in those answeres." (Chap- 
ter 12). 

Some goes on with details of the Anabaptists, 
of their churches in London, and of their con- 
nection with the universities. 

When we consider together this testimony it is 
strong and striking. There were in 1589 Anabap- 
tist English speaking churches, with graduates 
from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge,* 
with many members, in London and elsewhere. 
All of these details are associated with John 
Penry, who was an immersionist,and there is noth- 
ing to indicate any difference of opinion on this 
subject between the churches and Penry; indeed, 
the proof all points to their practicing immersion. 

John Smyth was associated with John Norcott 
on the subject of baptism on March 24th, 
1609. This baptism was certainly by immersion, 
for we find Norcott writing a book to substanti- 
ate dipping. This book of Norcott was edited 
and reprinted by Chas. H. Spurgeon. I give a 
portion of Chapter IV.: 

•* I. The Greek word Baptizo means to plunge, 
to overwhelm. Thus Christ was plunged in water. 
Matt. 3. 16. Thus he was plunged or overwhelmed 
in his sufferings, Luke 12.50. ' I have a baptism 
to be baptized with; and how am I straightened till it 
be accomplished' 

" 2. The Dutch Translation reads. In those days 
came John the Dipper, Matt. 3. i. And in John 3. 
23, that version reads, John was dipping in ^?io?i 



ISG DID THEY DIP ? 

because there ivas 7iiuch zvater there. What need 
much water were it not for dipping ? 

" 3, They did baptize in rivers. TJiey came to 
John^ and were baptized in Jordan, Matt. 3, 6. John 
was baptizi?ig in ^?io?i because there was much water 
there, John 3. 23. Why need it be in a river, and 
where there was much water? Would not a little 
water in a Bason serve to Sprinkle the Face? 

** 4. Baptism signifies the Burial of Christ. 
. Therefore we are bttried with him by baptism, into 
death, Rom. 6. 4. Buried with him in Baptism, Col. 
2. 12. Now we do not recon a man buried when 
a little earth is spri?ikled on his Face, but he is 
buried when covered; thus you are buried i?i Bap- 
tism. 

** 5. Christ's sufferings are called a Baptism, 
Luke 12. 50. I have a Baptism to be baptized with ; 
and Jiow am I straiglitened till it be accomplished! 
When Christ suffered he was plunged into pains. 
Did his sufferings lie only on his Head or on his 
Forehead? No, no; there was not one part free; 
he was from head to foot in pain; his head was 
crowned with piercing Thorns, his hands and feet 
were nailed to the Cross; and his whole person 
was so stretched out on the Cross that a man might 
hdiYG told all his bones, Ps. 22. 17. There was not 
one part free. Man hath sinned. Body, Soul and 
Spirit, and therefore the whole Christ must suffer 
for sin. Christ was baptized into pain, plunged 
into sorrow, not any part free: this he called his 
Baptism. Thus one baptized is plunged under 
water, to show how Christ was plunged into sor- 
row for our sakes. 



THE ENGLISH BAPTISTS BEFORE 1641. 137 

" 6. Baptism is a putting on Christ. As many of 
you as have beeii baptized into Oirist have pnt on 
Christ, Gal. 3. 27. The text means that as a serv- 
ant wears his Lord's Livery, a Garment which 
demonstrates him to be a Servant to such a great 
Personage, so in Baptism we put on our Lord's 
Livery, and he himself clothes us from head to 
foot. It is thus that by Baptism we put on Christ. 

"7. VVhe?t Christ was baptized, he came up out of 
the Water, Matt. 3. 16. Was his baptism per- 
formed by having a little Water thrown on his 
Face? Then he had not been in the Water, and 
could not have come out of it; but because he 
was baptized in the Water, therefore being bap- 
tized he came up out of the Water. Philip and 
the Eunuch went down both into the Water, (and 
being there in the Water) Philip baptized \)cv^ Eu- 
nuch. Both of them came up out of the Water, 
Acts 8. 39; but to what End had they gone 
down if Philip did merely Sprinkle the Eunuch, 
or Pour water upon his head? 

" Thus you see the place where these various per- 
sons were baptized was a River, or a certain 
water; their Action was on this wise — they went 
down into the Water, then, being in the Water, 
they were baptized. This was done in places 
where there was much water. Tlie end was to 
show forth Christ's Burial; now if there be not a 
Burial under water to show Christ's Burial, the 
great end of the Ordinance is lost: but Burial is 
well set forth by Dipping under Water." (Bap- 
tism Discovered Plainly and Faithfully, according 
to the Word of God. Pp. 28-31. London, 1885). 



138 DID THEY DIP ? 

Then there follow some questions and answers 
to show that sprinkling is " strange fire " on the 
altar of God. 

Edmond Jessop had been an Anabaptist, and 
had departed from the faith. In 1623 he pub- 
lished "A Discovery of the Errors of the English 
Anabaptists." This book was on infant baptism, 
but in referring to the position of the Anabaptists 
he mentions their use of Rom. 6. While dipping 
is not mentioned it is plain that Jessop assumes 
it in relation to the Anabaptists. Jessop says: 

"In which words (I say) he setteth downe ex- 
presly that the baptisme which saueth, the bap- 
tisme whereby we put on Christ, the baptisme 
whereby our hearts are purged and sanctified, 
and the sinnes of our flesh done away, whereby 
we are buried with Christ, and doe rise with him, 
euen that which is through the faith and operation 
of the Spirit, is one and the same, with the circum- 
cision of the heart, which he therefore calleth, 
the cirawicisio7L made without ha?ids, tJie circiuncision 
of Christ, whereby also it appeareth clearly, and 
beyond all contradiction, that the circumcision, 
or the cutting of the foreskin of the flesh, was a 
signe and a true representation of the doing away 
of their sinnes, of the cleansing of the heart by 
faith (as the now doing away of the filth of the 
flesh with the baptism of water is); for which vse 
and end, it was also given to Abraham at the first, 
as this Apostle also declareth in another place," 
etc. (P. 62). 

Vavasor Powell is a brilliant instance of a man 
baptized by immersion upon a profession of his 
faith before 1641. Davis says of him: 



THE ENGLISH BAPTISTS BEFORE 164I. 139 

** He was inclined to suffer affliction with the 
people of God rather than to proceed in the ways 
of sin and folly. Soon afterwards he was baptized 
on a profession of his faith, and became a very 
popular preacher among the Baptists in Wales 
in the year of our Lord in 1636. He was one of 
the most zealous and useful preachers in the Prin- 
cipality. He often preached throughout Wales 
and in many parts of England. Being a man of 
liberal education, he was remarkably fluent in 
both languages." (History of the Welsh Baptists, 
p. 28. Pittsburg, 1835). 

Powell himself is very clear upon the act of 
baptism. He says: 

" Water baptism is a solemn, significant dipping 
into, or washing with water the body in (or into) 
the name of the Father, &c. (Matt. 28, 19). It 
signifies the death, the burial and resurrection of 
Christ, also the spiritual cleansing and washing 
of justification and regeneration or sanctification." 
(Life, pp. 35-41)- 

Edward Barber refers to the Independents in 
these words: 

" Again, others who pretend to come neerestin 
that way in separating, yet hold the baptisme 
they there received though on no ground; for if 
they were truly baptised into that Church I con- 
ceive with submission to better judgments, they 
ought to continue, and to separate for corrup- 
tions, as is clearly proved by B. Hall, in his 
Apology against the Brownists, shewing that 
either they must goe forward to baptisme, or 
come backe again to the Bishops and Church." 



140 DID THEY DIP ? 

(A Small Treatise of Baptisme, Preface, sec. 6, 
London, 1641 ). 

The work of Bishop Hall to which reference is 
here made is called: "A common apologie of 
the Church of England against the unjust chal- 
lenges of the over just sect commonly called 
Brownists." The title page shows that this book 
was written in 1610. Barber always understood 
baptism to be an immersion, and quotes Bishop 
Hall in support of his position that the Brown- 
ists must go back to Episcopacy or forward to 
baptism. Barber would not have quoted Hall as 
sustaining his immersion views unless he had 
strong reasons for so doing. This reference will 
carry the practice of immersion back among Bap- 
tists till 1610, at any rate. Indeed, there is no 
doubt about the concession of Bishop Hall, for I 
find in the work of A. R., 1642, the first part of 
"The Vanity of Childish Baptism," p. 34, a very 
striking passage from Bishop Hall. The Bishop 
called the Anabaptists Catabaptists, or dippers. 
I quote from A. R.: 

** Yea and much lesse in the judgment of BisJiop 
Hall, who in this point expresses himselfe in these 
words (viz) I am for my heart so confident of the 
Divine Institution of the majority of Bishops 
above Presbyters, that I dare boldly say, that 
there are weighty points of faith which have not 
so strong evidence in holy Scripture, (and there 
be instanceth in two particulars). The power by 
sacred orders given to the ministers alone for the 
Consecration and distribution of the holy Eucha- 
rist, and the receiving of Infants to holy Bap- 



THE ENGLISH BAPTISTS BEFORE 164I. 141 

tisme, which (saith he) is a matter of so high 
consequence, that we justly brand the Catabap- 
tists with heresie for denying it, yet let me with 
good assurance, say, that the evidences of this 
truth come farre short of that which the Script- 
ures have afforded us for the superiority of some 
Church Governor even those who otherwise in- 
deed, in a sole respect of their Ministerial Func- 
tion, are equall ; and then he shuts up the point 
in these very words (viz) He therefore that 
would upon pretence of want of Scripture quar- 
rell at the Divine institution of Bishops might 
with much better colour cavill at these blessed 
Ordinances of God." (P. 35). 

Here is undoubted contemporaneous evidence 
in 1610 that the Baptists were immersionists. 



142 DID THEY DIP ? 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE KIFFIN MS. AND THE JESSEY CHURCH RECORD?. 

The foundation upon which Dr. Whitsitt builds 
his entire superstructure is the so-called Kiffin 
manuscript. The authority, authenticity and 
clearness of the application of this document to 
the Baptists must be put beyond question. He 
must have " irrefragable proofs " to sustain this 
manuscript. There must be no mistake or doubt 
on a vital point like this. It is upon this manu- 
script that he gets his date of 164 1. It is from 
this manuscript that he establishes immersion 
from the Dutch through Blount. It is from this 
manuscript that he traces his line of succession, 
and indeed it is from this manuscript that he gets 
all the details of his theory. It is the only Bap- 
tist document that he quotes that is at all vital to 
his position. What we demand of Dr. Whitsitt 
just here is clear, certain and unequivocal proof. 
At this vital point he fails and the testimony is 
against him. 

After quoting from Hutchinson, Crosby says: 
■ " This agrees with an account given of the 
matter in an ancient manuscript, said to be 
written by Mr. Willia?7i Kiffin, who lived in those 
times, and was a leader among those of that per- 
suasion: 

"This relates that several sober and pious persons be- 
longing to the Congregations of dissenters about London 
were convinced that believers were the only proper subjects 
of baptism and that it ought only to be administered by 
immersion or dipping the whole body into water in resem- 



THE KIFFIN MS. AND JESSEY CHURCH RECORDS. 143 

blance of burial and resurrection according to 2 Colos. ii. 12, 
and Rom. vi. 4. That they often met together to pray and 
confer about this matter and consult what methods they 
should take to enjoy the ordinance in its primitive purity. 
That they could not be satisfied about any ad7ninist?'ator in 
England to begin this practice, because though some in 
this nation rejected the baptism of infants yet they had not 
as they knew of revived the ancient custom of ijn7nersion. 
But hearing that some in the Netherlands practiced it, they 
sent over one Mr. Richard Blount, who understood the 
Dutch language; That he went accordingly, carrying let- 
ters of recommendation with him, and was kindly received 
both by the church there and by Mr. John Batte, their 
teacher; That on his return he baptized Mr. Samuel Black- 
lock, a minister; and those two baptized the rest of the 
company, whose names are in the manuscript, to the num- 
ber of fifty-three." (Crosby I., 101-2). 

Dr. Whitsitt was led to see that this testimony 
from the so-called Kififin manuscript was not con- 
clusive, so he cast around to find something to 
sustain it. He virtually confesses that the Kif^n 
manuscript is not authoritative (p. 83). He 
thinks he finds this confirmation in the Rev. 
George Gould's account of the Norwich Chapel 
case in England. The book is entitled " Open 
Communion and the Baptists of Norwich," by 
Rev. George Gould, and was published in i860. 
This new evidence that Dr. Whitsitt discovers 
is called the " Jessey Church Records." He 
says of them: 

These singularly valuable records, which must be still in 
existence since Gould had them in his possession in 1860 
(Open Communion, Introduction, p. cxxiii), ought by all 
means to be published in facsimile, and whoever accom- 
plishes that task will render an important service to Bap- 
tist history. Mr. Gould prints only " certain entries" found 
in them (Introduction, p. cxxii), and these do not quite cover 
all the ground occupied by the so-called Kiffin manuscript. 
To facilitate comparison both documents will be found 
printed in parallel columns below, the one under the title of 
"Jessey Church Records" and the other as the so-called 
Kiffin manuscript. (P. 81). 



144 



DID THEY DIP ? 



He devotes a whole chapter to these " Genuine 
Ancient Records." And throughout the remain- 
der of the book he makes the greatest use of 
them, referring to them no less than 28 times. 
He quotes them on all important occasions, and 
indeed without the "Jessey Church Records" his 
case goes to the wall. They are the keystone in 
the arch. Here is where he gets his 1641, and 
this is the extent of his discovery. Here are Dr. 
Whitsitt's parallel columns: 

JESSEY CHURCH RECORDS. SO-CALLED KIFFIN MANU- 

1633. There haveing been 
much discussing, These de- 
nying Truth of ye Parish 
Churches, and ye Church be 
ing now become so large yt 
it might be prejudicial.These 
following desireddismission, 
that they might become an 
Entire Church, and (2) fur- 
ther ye Communion of those 
Churches in Order amongst 
themselves, wch at last was 
granted to them, and per- 
formed Sept. 12, 1633, viz.: 

Henry Parker & wife. 

Jo. Milburn. 

Widd. Fearne. 

Arnold. 

[Green] Hatmaker. 

Mr. Wilson. 

Mark Luker. 

Tho. Allen. 

Mary Milburn. 

To These Joyned Rich. 
Blunt, Tho. Hubert, Riv h. 
Tredwell, and his Wife 
Kath., John Trimber, Wm. 
Jennings and Sam Eaton, 
Mary Greenway, (3) Mr. 
Eaton wiih some others 
receiving a further baptism. 

Others Joyned to them. 

1638. These also being cf 



SO-CALLED KIFFIN 
SCRIPT. 

There was a congregation 
of Protestant Dissenters of 
the independent Persuasion 
in London, gathered in the 
year 1616, whereof Mr. 
Henry Jacob was the first 
pastor; and after him suc- 
ceeded Mr. John Lathorp, 
who was their minister at 
this time. In this society 
several persons finding that 
the congregations kept not 
to their first principles of 
separation, and being also 
convinced that (1) baptism 
was not to be administered 
to infants, but such only as 
professed faith in Christ, 
desired that they might be 
dismissed from that com- 
munion, and allowed to form 
a distinct congregation in 
such order as was most 
agreeablj to their own Sen- 
timents. 

The church considering 
that they were now grown 
Very numerous, and so more 
than could in these times (.i. 
persecution conveniently 
meet together, and believ- 
ing also that those persons 



THE KIFFIX MS. AND JESSEY CHURCH RECORDS. 145 



ye same Judgment with Sam 
Eaton,and desiring to depart 
and not be censured, our in- 
trest in them was remitted, 
with Prayer made in their 
behalf, June 8, 1638. They 
haveing first forsaken Us, 
and Joyned with Mr. Spils- 
bury, viz. 

Mr. Peti Ferrer, 

Wm. Batty, 

Hen. Pen, 

Mrs. Allen (died 1639), 

Tho. Wilson, 

Mr. Norwood. 

Gould, Ope7i Co7nmunion 
and the Baptists of Norwich^ 
Intro., p. cxxii. 

1640. 3d Mo. [May]. The 
Church [whereof Mr. Jacob 
and Mr. John Lathorp had 
been Pastors], became two 
by mutual consent, just half 
being with Mr. P. Barebone, 
and ye other halfe with Mr. 
H. Jessey. (8.) Mr. Richd. 
Blunt wth him, being con- 
vinced of Baptism, yt also it 
ought to be by diping ye 
Body into ye Water, re- 
sembling Burial and riseing 
again. (Col. ii., 12; Rom. 
vi., 4): had sober Confer- 
ance about it in ye Church, 
and and the^i with some of 
theforefiamed, who also were 
so convi?tced : And after 
Prayer and Conf erance about 
their so enjoying it, none 
having then so pracziced in 
E7igla7id to professed Believ- 
e7's, and hearing that ^ome 
in the Nether Lands had so 
practiced, they agreed and ■ 
sent over Mr. Rich'd Blunt 
(who understood Dutch), 
with Letters of Comenda- 
tion, who was kindly accept- 
ed there, and Returned with 



acted from a principle of 
conscience, and not obstin- 
acy, agreed to allow them 
the liberty they desired, and 
that they should be consti- 
tuted adistinct church, which 
- was performed the 12th of 
September, 1633. And as 
they believed that baptism 
was not rightly administer- 
ed to infants, so they looked 
upon the baptism they had 
received in that age as in- 
valid; whereupon most or 
all of them received a new 
baptism. (5) Their minister 
was Mr. John Spilsbury. 
What number they were is 
uncertain, because in the 
mentioning of the names of 
about twenty men and 
women it is added, with 
divers others. 

In the year 1638 Mr. Wil- 
liam (6) Kiffin, Mr. Ihomas 
Wilson, and others being of 
the same judgment, were 
upon their request, dismissed 
to the said Mr. Spilsbury's 
congregation. 

(7) In the year 1639 an- 
other congregation of Bap- 
tists was formed, whose place 
of meeting was in Crutched 
— Fryars; . the chief pro- 
moters of which were Mr. 
Green, Mr. Paul Hobson 
and Captain Spencer. 

Crosby, Vol. I., pp. 148-9. 

For in the year 1640, this 
church became two by con- 
sent; just half, says the man- 
uscript, being with Mr. P. 
Barebone, and the other half 
with Mr. Henry Jessey. 

Crosby, Vol. Ill, p. 41. 

Several sober and pious 
persons belonging to the 
Congregations of the dis- 



146 



DID THEY DIP ? 



senters about London were 
convinced that believers 
were the only proper sub- 
jects of baptism, and that 
it ought to be administered 
by immersion or dipping the 
whole body into Ihe water, 
in resemblance of a burial 
and resurrection according 
to Colos. II., 12, and Rom. 
VI., 4. That they often met 
together to pray and confer 
about this matter, and to con- 
sult what methods they 
should take to enjoy this 
ordinance in its primitive 
purity: That they could not 
be satisfyed about any ad- 
ministrator in England to 
begin this practice; because 
tho' some in this nation re- 
jected the baptism of in- 
fants, yet they had not as 
they kneiv of revived ihe an- 
cient custojn • of i)ninersion : 
But hearing that some in 
the Netherlands practiced 
it, they agreed to send over 
one Mr. Richard Blunt, who 
understood the Dutch lan- 
guage; that he went accord- 
ingly, carrying letters of re- 
commendation with him and 
was kindly received both by 
the church there and Mr. 
John Batten, their teacher. 

That upon his return he 
baptized Mr. Samuel Black- 
lock, a minister, and these 
two baptized the rest of 
their company [whose names 
are in the manuscript to 
the number of fifty-three.] 

Crosby, Vol. I., pp. 101-2. 

Dr. Whitsitt divides these " Jessey Church Rec- 
ords " into two parts. The first part contains the 
two paragraphs under "Jessey Church Records," 



Letters from them,Jo. Batten 
a Teacher there, and from 
that Church to such as sent 
him. 

1641. They proceed on 
therein, viz.: Those persons 
yt ware perswaded Baptism 
should be by dipping ye 
Body, had mett in (9) two 
Companies, and did intend 
so to meet after this: all 
these agreed to proceed 
alike together: and then 
Manifesting (not by any for- 
mal Words) a Covenant 
(wch Word was Scrupled by 
some of them), but by mutual 
desires and agreement each 
testified: These two Com- 
panyes did set apart one to 
Baptize the rest, so it was 
Solemnly performed by 
them. 

Mr. Blunt baptized Mr. 
Blacklock, yt was a Teacher 
amongst them, and Mr.Blunt 
being baptized, he and Mr. 
Blacklock Baptized ye rest 
of their friends yt ware so 
minded, and many being 
added to them they increas- 
ed much. 

Gould, open Communion 
and the Baptists of Norivich, 
Intro., pp. cxxiii, cxxiv. 



THE KIFFIN MS. AND JESSEY CHURCH RECORDS. 147 

under the dates of 1633 and 1638. These two 
paragraphs contain nothing on the subject of 
baptism and are of no importance in this discus- 
sion. These "Jessey Church Records" are intro- 
duced by Gould with these words: 

" Amongst the MSS. of H. Jessey, who in 1637 
became pastor of the Church from which these 
persons had seceded, are 'The Records of an 
Antient Congregation of Dissenters from wch 
many of y^ Independent and Baptist Churches in 
London took their rise,' and there I find these 
entries:" 

Then follows all that is found above under 
the dates of 1633 and 1638. 

The second part is under the dates of 1640 and 

1641. Of this second division Dr. Whitsitt says: 

The second division of the Jessey Church Records, be- 
ginning with the disruption- of Jessey's church in 1640, is 
perhaps the most important. (P. 85). 

This contains all that is said on the subject of 
baptism. In it is found the quotation he has 
made so many times in the body of the book, 
" none having then so practiced in England to 
professed believers." If this is overthrown all is 
gone. His book is gone, for this is the keystone 
of the whole superstructure. I now assert on the 
authority of Gould himself, from whom Dr. Whit- 
sitt quotes, that there is nothing of this sort in 
the "Jessey Church Records" at all. The records 
make no such reference to the years 1640 and 
1641. No such words are found in them. How 
Dr. Whitsitt came to place these two paragraphs 
in the *' Jessey Church Records " I cannot attempt 



148 DID THEY DIP ? 

to explain. It is sufficient to say that they arc 
not there. And Gould, from whom he quotes, 
does not place them there. So all of this 
ado about the " Jessey Church Records " goes 
into thin air. 

From whence, then, did Dr. Whitsitt get these 
two paragraphs? They have no connection with 
the Jessey Church Records whatever, but are an- 
other version of the Kiffin Manuscript, and Gould 
so quotes them. Gould widely separates these 
paragraphs from the Jessey Records and distinctly 
says that these paragraphs are from the Kiffin 
Manuscript. His words are: 

" Crosby appeals for confirmation of Hutchin- 
son's account to ' an antient manuscript by Mr. 
William Kiffin,' and of which he proceeds to give 
the substance. As I have the same document 
lying before me, I shall allow the writer to tell his 
own tale." (Open Communion and the Baptists 
of Norwich, p. cxxiii). And then he proceeds to 
give the words Dr. Whitsitt put under the *' Jes- 
sey Church Records" dated 16^0 and 1641. Here, 
then, Dr. Whitsitt has placed in the Jessey Church 
Records things which are contained in the Kiffin 
Manuscript. This not only destroys all reference 
to the Jessey Church Records as authorit\', but 
lilcewise weakens the Kiffin Manuscript. Which 
one of thes^ versions are we to believe? 
Crosby gives one and Gould gi\'es another. If Dr. 
Whitsitt had read even Armitage he would have 
found that Armitage gives this exact quotation 
and properly ascribes it to Kiffin. (Armitage's 
History of the Baptists, p. 441). 



THE KIFFIN MS. AND JESSEY CHURCH RECORDS. 149 

But in order that I may be perfectly clear on 
this point, at the risk of repeating somewhat, 
I give the entire statement of Gould. A com- 
parison of Gould with the statement of Dr. 
Whitsitt is all that is necessary to prove that 
Dr. Whitsitt has placed words in the Jessey 
Church Records which belong to the Kiffin 
Manuscript. Gould says: 

AMOXG THE MSS. OF MR. H. JESSEY. WHO IN 
1637 BECAME PASTOR OF THE CHURCH FROM 
WHICH THESE PERSONS HAD SECEDED, ARE 
"THE RECORDS OF AN ANTIENT CONGREGA- 
TION OF DISSENrERS, FROM WCH MANY OF 
YE INDEPENDENT AND BAPTIST CHURCHES IN 
LONDON TOOK THEIR FIRST RISE," AND THERE 
I'FIND THESE EN FRIES:- 

1633. There having been much discussing. These de- 
nying Truth of ye Parish Churches, and ye Church being 
now become so large yt it might be prejudicial. Ihese fol- 
lowing desired dismission, that they might become an En- 
tire Church, and further ye Communion of those Churches 
in Order amongst themselves, v/ch at last was granted to 
them, and performed Sept. 12, 1633, viz.: 
Henry Parker and wife, Jo. Milburn, 

AVidd. Fearne, Arnold, 

(Green) Hatmiaker, Mr. Wilson, 

Mark Luker, Tho. Allen, 

Mary Milburn. 

To These Joyned Rich. Blunt, Tho. Hubert, Rich. Tred- 
well, and his wife Kaih., John Timber, Wm. Jennings and 
Sam Eaton, Mary Greenway. Mr. Eaton with some others 
receiving a further baptssm. 

Others Joyned lo them. 

1638. These also being of ye same judgment with Sam 
Eaton, and desiring to depart and not be censured, our in- 
terest in them was remitted, with Prayer made in their be- 
half, June 8, 1638. They having first fursaken Us, and 
Joyned with ]Mr. Spilsbury, viz.: 
Mr. Peti Ferrer, Wm. Batty, 

Hen Pen, Mrs. Allen (died 1639), 

Tho. Wilson, Pvlr. Norwood. 

From these minutes I infer that Mr. Spilsbury, believ- 
ing " that baptizedness is not essential to the administrator," 

* Capitals mine. — C. 



150 DID THEY DIP ? 

felt no difficultie in administering the rite of baptism to 
" Sam Eaton with some others." This would account for 
his vindication of such a course in the following terms as 
quoted by Crosby: 

"And because some make it such an error, and so far 
from any rule or example for a man to baptize others, who 
is himself unbaptized, and so think thereby to shut up the 
ordi7ia7ice of God in such a strait, that none can come by it 
but thro' the authority of the Popedom of Rome ; let the rearer 
consider who baptized John the Baptist, before he baptized 
others, and if no man did, then whether he did not baptize 
others, he being himself unbaptized. We are taught by this 
what to do upon like occasions. 

"Further, says he, I fear that men put more than is of 
right due to it, that so prefer it above the church, and all 
other ordinajices besides; take in and cast out ?}iembers, elect 
and ordain officers, and administer the supper, and all 
anew, without any looking after succession, any further 
than the Scriptures. But as for baptism, they must have 
that successfully from the Apostles, though it comes thro' 
the hands of Pope Joan. What is the cause of this, that 
men can do all from the Word but only baptism?" 

It is evident, therefore, that some persons scrupled the 
correctness of Mr. Spilsbury's conduct. Edward Hutchin- 
son, in his "Treatise concerning the Covenant and Bap- 
tism," incidentally confirms this conclusion, for he says 
that, when several persons resolved to practice the baptism 
of believers according to their light: 

" The great objection was the want of an ad7ninistrator, 
which, as I have heard, was removed by sending certam 
messengers to Holland, whence they were supplied." 

Crosby applies for confirmation of Hutchinson's account 
to "an ancient marmscript, said to have been written by 
Mr. William Kiffin," of which he proceeds to give the sub- 
stance. AS I HAVE THE SAME DOCUMENT NOW 
LYING BEFORE ME. I SHALL ALLOW THE 
WRITER TO TELL HIS OWN TALE:* 

"1640, 8d Mo. (May). The Church [whereof Mr. Jacob 
and Mr. John Lathrop had been Pastors], became two by 
mutual consent, just half being wiih Mr. P. Barebone and 
ye other halfe with Mr. H. Jessey. Mr. Rich'd Blunt 
with him being convinced of Baptism, yt also it ought to be 
by dipping ye Body into ye Water, resembling Burial and 
riseing again. Col. IL, 12; Rom. \T., 4; had sober Confer- 
ence about it in ye Church, a7id, thrn with so7ne of the for e- 
7ia77ied, who also ivere so convi7iced : And rifter Prayer and 
Conference about their so Qu']oymg\\., none having the7i so 
Pr-acticed i7i England to professed Believers, and ' hearmg 

* Capitals mine.— C. 



THE KIFFIN MS. AND JESSEY CHURCH RECORDS. 151 

that some in the Nether Lands had so practiced, they 
agieed and sent over Mr. Rich'd Blunt (who understood 
Dutch) with Letters of Commendation, who was kindly ac- 
cepted there, and retur.ned with Letters from them, Jo Bat- 
ten a Teacher there, and from that Church to such as sent 
him. 

"1641. They proceed on therein, viz.: Those persons yt 
ware perswaded Baptism should be by dipping ye Body, 
had mett in two Companies, and did intend so to meet after 
this; all these agreed to proceed alike together; and then 
Manifesting (not by any formal words) a Covenant (Word 
wch was Scrupled by some of them) but by mutual desires 
and agreement each testified: These two Companyes did 
set apart one to Baptize the rest, so it was Solemnly per- 
formed by them. 

",Mr. Blunt baptized Mr. Blacklock, yt was a Teacher 
among them, and Mr. Blunt being baptized, he and Mr. 
Blacklock baptized ye rest of their friends ytware so 
minded, and many being added to them they increased 
much." 

But there is another consideration which I 
have not as yet mentioned. Are the Jessey 
Church Records a forgery? Dr. Henry S. Bur- 
rage is constrained to admit: 

" It will be noticed that in our reference above 
to the Jessey Church Records, we say * if they 
are authentic' We have not forgotten the 
* Crowle and Epworth* records. These made 
their appearance about the same time as the Jes- 
sey Church Records, and it is now known that 
they are clumsy forgeries. The Jessey Church 
Records may be genuine, but their genuineness 
has not yet been established." {Zions Advocate, 
Sept. 30, 1896). 

We have no external proof of the genuineness- 
of these Records. They stand wholly unauthen- 
ticated. Before we accept them we must have 
undoubted proof of their genuineness. Outside 
of the fact that we have not one iota of external 



152 DID THEY DIP ? 

evidence that these Records are genuine, the in- 
ternal evidence is all against them. Examine the 
title "The Records of an antient Congregation of 
Dissenters from wch many of ye Independent 
and Baptist Churches took their rise." This title 
is enough to forever condemn these Records as a 
forgery. Allow me to point out a few considera- 
tions: 

1. This was not, in 1640, an ancient congrega- 
tion. At that time this church had been organ- 
ized less than twenty-five years, and in that tand 
of ancient churches no man would have called 
this Jessey Church an "antient Congregation." 

2. In 1640 "many of ye Independent Church- 
es" had not taken "their rise" from it. 

3. In 1640 it was not the Mother of "many" 
Baptist Churches. 

4. The name " Baptist Churches " was not then 
in use, and conclusively proves these Records a 
fraud. The term " Baptist " was not used till 
some years after this period. 

Thus Dr. Whitsitt's principal authority has no 
existence in fact. His whole book is founded upon 
this error. As much has been said about the so- 
called Kiffin Manuscript, I will now proceed to 
review it. It is scarcely worth while, after this 
remarkable exploit with the Jessey Church Rec- 
ords, but I desire to give a complete review of 
the subject. 

This theory, as presented from the so-called 
Kiffin Manuscript, presents insuperable difficul- 
ties: 

I. Dr. Whitsitt presents no proof, and none has 



THE KIFFIN MS. AND JESSEY CHURCH RECORDS. 153 

been found, that Kiffin wrote this Manuscript. 
Crosby, who wrote his history about one hundred 
years after this event, is. said to have happened, 
ventured to say: 

" This^agrees with an account of the matter in 
an ancient manuscript said to have been written 
by Mr. Wm. Kiffin, who lived in those times." 
(Crosby, Vol. I., p. lOo). 

Cathcart, a Baptist writer, says this transaction 
of Blount's may have happened, but he further 
remarks: 

" We would not bear heavily ^on the testimony 
adduced by these good men." (Baptist Encyclo- 
paedia, Vol. I., p. 572). 

2. There is no proof that the Manuscript was 
written by any one near the year 1641. Dexter, 
upon whom Dr. Whitsitt has constantly relied, 
gives up this Manuscript. He says: 

" Crosby says he derived his information from 
an 'antient manuscript said to be written by Mr. 
William Kiffin, who lived in those times, and was 
a leader among those of that persuasion.' Con- 
ceding the genuineness of this manuscript, and 
its value in testimony — both of which might 
be open to question — let us note its exact words 
as to the point before us." (The True Story of 
John Smyth, p. 43). 

Again: 

** On the other hand, had not Kiffin — as it is 
supposed — made the statement, it would be 
suspicious for its vagueness, and for the fact that 
none of the historians, not even Wilson, Calamy, 
Brook, or Neal, know anything about either 



154 DID THEY DIP ? 

Blount or Blacklock, beyond what is here stated." 

(P. 54). 

Armitage says of the entire transaction: 
" A feeble but strained attempt has been made 
to show that none of the English Baptists prac- 
ticed immersion prior to 1641, from the document 
mentioned by Crosby in 1738, of which he re- 
marks that it was ' said to be written by Mr. 
William Kififin.' Although this manuscript is 
signed by fifty-thi-ee persons, it is evident that its 
authorship was only guessed at from the begin- 
ning, it may or may not have been written by 
Kififin." (History of the Baptists, p. 440). 

3. No authoritative copy of this manuscript is 
known to be in existence and no Baptist historian, 
unless we may call Gould such, appears to have 
ever seen it. Crosby does not quote it, nor does 
he say he ever saw it, but he only makes general 
statements from it without quoting the exact 
words. Dr. Whitsitt makes no claim of having 
seen this manuscript. His reference is to Crosby. 

4. The statements in the quotation are vague 
and uncertain. It only speaks of " several sober 
and pious persons belonging to the Congregations 
of the dissenters about London." There is noth- 
ing to prove that these persons ever organized a 
Baptist Church. There is no proof that Blount 
or Blacklock were Baptist preachers. Their 
names are not appended to the Confession of 
Faith of 1644, which almost certainly would have 
been the case had they organized the first Baptist 
Church of England and introduced immersion 
among them. No record of such an event was 



THE KIFFIN MS. AND JESCEY CHURCH RECORDS. 155 

kept, and the only reference I have found in the 
century to it is in the words of Hutchinson, 1676, 
or thirty- one years later, who reports on hearsay 
that " certain messengers went to Holland." The 
dates are as conflicting as the so-called facts. 
Barclay, who was the first to discover the " inven- 
tion" of immersion among the Baptists, says 
Blount went to Holland in 1633. Newman puts 
the date 1640 and Dr Whitsitt 1641. 

Evans says : 

" This statement is vague. We have no date 
and cannot tell whether the fact refers to the 
Separatists under Mr. Spilsbury or to others." 
(History Early English Baptists. Vol. H., p. 78). 

Dr. A. H. Newman, who has been so industri- 
ously quoted, says: 

" A few remarks seem called for by the obscu- 
rity of some of the statements quoted above. It 
is not possible out of the material that has thus 
far come to the light to trace in detail the evolu- 
tion of the seven churches that signed the con- 
fession of 1644. The statement quoted from the 
so-called * Kiffin Manuscript ' with reference to 
the division of 1640 involves a number of difficul- 
ties. P. Barebone, with whom half of the church 
withdrew, has commonly been regarded by Bap- 
tist writers as a Baptist. Yet in 1642 he pub- 
lished * A Discourse tending to prove the Baptism 
in, or under, the Defection of Antichrist to be the 
Ordinance of Jesus Christ, as also that the Bap- 
tism of Infants or Children is Warrantable and 
Agreeable to the Word of God,' and in 1643 ^^<^ 
1644 he published other polemical tracts against 



156 DIQ THEY DIP ? 

Antipedobaptism. If in 1641 he was the leader 
of the Antipedobaptists and immersionist half of 
the divided congre£^ation he must soon after have 
abandoned his position. This is, of course, pos- 
sible. From the construction of the sentence 
Jessey might be taken to be the leader of the 
Baptist half, but it appears that Jessey did not 
become a Baptist till five years later. This diffi- 
culty seems inexplicable without further mate- 
rial." (A History of the Baptist Churches in the 
United States, pp. 52, 53). 

It is altogether possible that these " dissent- 
ers " may not have know^i that there were im- 
mersionists in London, and that such persons 
may have lived on the same square with them. 
Under the persecutions of the Court of High 
Commission and the Court of Star Chamber it 
was not safe for one to announce himself a 
Baptist. 

6. The account that Hutchinson gives is very 
different from the so-called Kiffin Manuscript. 
He makes no mention of dipping, but declares 
that the trouble was in regard to an administrator. 
The edition of Hutchinson from which I quote 
bears date, London, 1676. He says: 

** VVhe7i the professors of these nations Jiad been a long 
time wearied zvith the yoke of superstitions, cere- 
monies, traditions of men, and corrupt mixtures 
in the worship and service of God, it pleased the 
Lord to break these yokes, and by a very strong iiii- 
pnlse of his Spirit upon the lie arts of his people, to con- 
vince them of the 7iecessity of Reformation. Divers 
pious, and very gracious people, having often sought 



THE KIFFIX MS. AND JESSE Y CHURCH RECORDS. 157 

the Lord by fasthig and prayer, that he woidd show 
tJic/U t/ie pattern of his house, the goiiigs-oiit a?id 
co}}nngs-m therrof, &c. Resolved {by the grace of 
God), not to receive or practice any piece of 
positive worship which had not precept or exam- 
[:le from the word of God. Infant-baptisin cojiiing 
cf course under consideration, after long search and 
many debates, it zu as found to have 7io footing i?i the 
Scriptures (the only rule and standard to try doc- 
trines by) ; but on the contrary a mere huwvatioji, 
yea, the profanatio?i of an ordinance of God. And 
though it v^as proposed to be laid aside , yet zvliat fears, 
tremblings, and temptations did attend them, lest they 
should be mistaken, co?isidering how many learned 
and godly moi vjcre of an opposite persuasion. Hoiv 
gladly vcoidd they have had the rest of thir brethren 
gone alo.'ig with them. But zvhen there was no hopes, 
they concluded that a Christian's faith must not 
stand in the wisdom of men; and that every one 
must give an account of himself to God; and so 
resolved to practice according to their light. The great 
objection zvas, tlie want of an administrator ; zvldch, as 
I have heard, was remov d by sending certain mes- 
sengers to Holland, zvhence they were supplied." (A 
Treatise Concerning the Covenant and Baptism 
Dialogue-wise. Epistle to the Reader. London, 
1676). 

There is no question about the authenticity of 
this v\'ork of Hutchinson and the question of 
"dipping does not come upon the boards." The 
whole question hinged upon the lawfulness of 
infant baptism and a proper administrator, 

7. There is nothing in this manuscript to 



158 DID THEY DIP ? 

prove that there were not other Baptists in Eng- 
land who had nothing to do with this transaction. 
We have shown that there were many such 
churches. Crosby says: 

" But the greatest number of English Baptists 
looked upon all of this as needless trouble, and 
what proceeded from the old Popish Doctrine of 
right to administer sacraments by an uninterrupt- 
ed succession which neither the Church of Rome, 
nor the Church of England, much less the mod- 
ern Dissenters, could prove to be with them." 
(Vol. I., p. 103). 

The voice of Kiffin himself is against any such 
interpretation of this manuscript, for he would 
not have contradicted himself. Kiffin certainly 
said: "It is well knonw to many, especially 

TO OURSELVES, THAT OUR CONGREGATIONS WERE 
ERECTED AND FRAMED ACCORDING TO THE RULE 

OF Christ, before we heard of any Reforma- 
tion." (A Brief Remonstrance, p. 11). 

I do not think it possible with an unauthenti- 
cated, vague statement like the one contained in 
this manuscript to revolutionize Baptist history. 
Neither is there anything new in all this, for it 
was recorded long ago by Crosby, and has been 
before the Baptists more than two hundred years. 
Dr. Whitsitt is the only man who has drawn from 
it such startling conclusions. 



SOME WITNESSES. 159 



CHAPTER IX. 

SOME WITNESSES. 

Of Mr. Praise -God Barebones, Dr. Whitsitt 
makes great use. He wrote, if indeed he is the 
author, two books, under the initials P. B., which 
appeared in 1642-3. Dr. Whitsitt claims that 
while he was not a Baptist, as some other 
writers supposed, he was very friendly to them. 
He says: 

It is true that The Baptist Encyclopcedia has blundered 
in claiming Mr. Barebone as a Baptist minister, yet it was 
not a very great blunder. There was some reason for this 
conclusion, for he was closely connected with the Baptists, 
having been a member of the Jessey Church prior to the 
year 1640. (P. 102). 

Dr. Whitsitt further says that he was answered 
by R. B., whom he claims to be Richard Blunt, 
of which, however, there is no proof. After read- 
ing this eulogy of P. B., I turned to his book called 
" A Reply to the Frivolous and impertinent 
Answer of R. B., to the discourse of P. B.," 
and I did not find it friendly to the Baptists. 
It was altogether hostile. I can only give a few 
of his phrases: ** Boaster," " liar," ** bray a fool," 
" evil dealing," " willing to deceive," " he deals 
as the Divell dealt with the Lord, keeps back 
a mayne part, and so the shewing the mind 
to smother the truth and keep it in unrighteous- 
ness," etc., etc. These are only samples that are 
found all through this abusive writer. And yet 
this enemy is one of Dr. Whitsitt's principal 
witnesses. 



160 DID THEY DIP ? 

I charged, through The Western Recorder, that 
Dr. VVhitsitt copied from Dexter his quotation 
from P. B., as found in The Religious Herald, 
May 7, 1896. This is admitted, for in the book 
he uses an entirely different form of the quota- 
tion, as follows: 

" But now very lately some are mightily taken as having 
found out a new defect in the Baptisme under the defection, 
which maketh such a nuUitie of Baptisme in their conceit 
that it is none at all, and it is concerning the manner of 
Baptizing wherein they have espyed such default as it 
maketh an absolute nullity of all person's Baptisme but 
such as have been so Baptized according to their new dis- 
covery; and so partly as before in regard of the subject and 
partly in regard of so great default in the manner; They 
not only conclude as is before sayd a nullity of their pres- 
ent Baptisme, And so but addresse themselves to be Bap- 
tized a third time after the true way and manner they have 
found out, which they account a precious truth. The par- 
ticular of their opinioa and practice is to Dip, and that per- 
sons are to be Dipped, all and every part to be under the 
water, for if all the whole person be not under the water 
then they hold they are not Baptized with the Baptisme of 
Christ. As for sprmklmg or pouring water on the face it is 
nothing at all as they account, and so measuring themselves 
by these new thoughts as unbaptized they addresse them- 
selves to take It up after the manner of Dipping: but truly 
they want [lack] a Dipper that hath authority from heaven, 
as had John whom they please to call a Dipper, of whom it 
is sayd that it might be manifested his Baptisme was from 
heaven, A man can receive nothing, that is, lawful authority 
or power to Baptize, unlesse it be given from heaven, which 
I desire they would be pleased to mind and they will easily 
see their third baptism is from the earth and not from 
heaven, as John's was. And if this case be further consid- 
ered it will appeare at the most to be but a defect in the 
manner and a coming short in the quantity of the Element. 
It is a wonderful thing that a nullity should thereof follow 
forthwith, of which more may be seen in the same case be- 
fore. Againe that the su^>stance of an Ordinance of so high 
a nature and great concernment shou'd be founded in the 
criticknesse of a word and in the quantity of an element is 
no lesse marveilous, to say no more. Oh, but Baptisme is a 
Buriall as it is written. We are buried with him in Baptisme, 
etc., and we are raised up also to newness of life. This 
Buriall and resurrection only Dipping can import and hold 



SOME WITNESSES. 161 

forth But inasmuch as this is a very new way, 

and the full growth of it and settling is not yet known, if it 
be to themselves, yet not to me and others: I will forbeare 
to say further to it." (Pp. 12, 13, 15). 

The extract taken from Dexter had been terri- 
bly garbled. Sentences had been taken from dif- 
ferent parts of the book and pieced together, and 
sometimes the sentences did not even stop with a 
comma. The exact form of the quotation as given 
above may be found in The I?idepe?ident, Oct. 7, 
1880. The article appeared as an editorial, and 
the author's name does not appear; but Dr. 
Whitsitt very closely follows the line of proof and 
quotations in that editorial and some dozen others 
which may be found in The Independent from June 
24, 1880, to Dec. 13, 1883. But this quotation does 
not sustain Dr. Whitsitt's contention, for P. B. 
was not discussing the newness of dipping, but a 
proper administrator and rebaptism. And he 
taunts his opponent in "A Reply, To the 
Reader," London, 1643, with: 

"A man that had a minde to come to R. B. in 
his third Baptisme, before a yeare or two spent 
in the serious weighing of the matter, would find 
happily that R. B. had left his third Baptisme, 
and taken up a church." 

But P. B. did not think dipping was a new 
thing. In the quotation as given are found some 
dots. Those dots indicate the omission of a sig- 
nificant statement. P. B. there declares that dip- 
ping w^as not a new thing. He says: 

"The Romanists, some of them, and some of 
the poor ignorant Welsh do use dipping." 



162 DID THEY DIP ? 

And in A Reply he asks whether they learned 
dipping from the Romanists or the Welsh? 

1. I do not regard this anonymous author, P. 
B., as of any weight. One of the officials of the 
British Museum wrote me: **The book is not 
considered here as of any particular value, only 
an ordinary controversial pamphlet." His name, 
Praise-God Barebones, is enough to condemn 
him. It is said his two brothers assumed the 
names, respectively, of " Christ came into the 
World to save Barebones" and *' If Christ had 
not Died Thou hadst been Damned Barebones." 
I am surprised that any one would quote such an 
author as decisive on any point. Yet this man is 
one of Dr. Whitsitt's chief witnesses. 

2. It is perfectly apparent that the words of 
P. B. have been wofully misused. It leads us to 
suspect that all the authors that Dr. Whitsitt has 
quoted need further light thrown on them. Even 
as quoted by Dexter, P. B. does not sustain Dr. 
Whitsitt's theory; and the original is certainly 
against him. 

3. "Praise-God Barebones" defended sprink- 
ling, but he nowhere says dipping was a new 
thing. That it was practiced in the days of the 
apostles, that it was used in hot countries, that 
" the Romanists, some of them, and some of the 
poor ignorant Welsh do use dipping." He was a 
Pedobaptist, and believed in sprinkling, and so 
tried to refute the opinion of the Anabaptists on 
dipping; but he does not declare that dipping or 
a denial of infant baptism to be a new thing. 
" The new way of Baptizing," or as it is called 



SOME ^VITNESSES. 163 

here " the new dipping," because the act had 
been repeated, over and over again, in his book 
he declares to be rebaptizing, or denying the per- 
petuity of the Roman Catholic Church. 

Thomas Kilcop, a Baptist, 1642, who wrote a book 
called " A Short Treatise on Baptisme," does not 
think so highly of " Praise-God Barebones " as Dr. 
Whitsitt does. He says he spoke " evil of us," 
and his "sin was open." Dr. Dexter is surprised 
that Kilcop in replying to P. B. " makes no allu- 
sion whatever to Barbon's charge of the newness 
of the dipping way." (True Story of John Smyth, 
p. 48). To me there is nothing strange in this, for 
the simple reason " Barbon," or P. B., had made 
no such charge. This position of Kilcop's is in 
full confirmation of the position that I took in re- 
gard to P. B., that the discussion was in regard 
to the authority of the baptism of Rome. But Dr. 
Whitsitt is very brave and says: 

One of our moderns would have denied out of hand that 
adult immersion had ever become extinct in England; but 
Mr. Kilcop knew more about the matter. He conceded 
that point without any question, and argued that even 
though immersion had become extinct the Baptists had as 
much right ' to erect baptisme' as the Independents had ' to 
erect a church state.' It would be impossible for a man to 
urge an argument like this, who took immersion for granted; 
on the contrary, that was the very thing he did not take for 
granted. (P. 121). 

The only reference that Dr. Whitsitt gives is 

out of Dexter, and after reading this statement of 

Dr. Whitsitt I have not only examined Dexter 

but have read Kilcop's book through, and I find 

nothing like such conclusions. As a matter of 

fact, the first thing Kilcop does after announcing 

his text is to declare that " Baptisme is a Greek 



164 DID THEY DIP ? 

word and most properly signifies dipping in Eng- 
lish; and therefore the parties baptised are said to 
be baptised not at, but in, Jordan. Then note, that 
the baptizing or dipping in water belongs to 
Christ's disciples and none else." (P. i). 

And there is not another word that I have found 
about dipping in the book. Certainly this is tak- 
ing dipping for granted, and certainly there is 
nothing that would intimate that dipping was a 
new thing. 

The testimony of Edward Barber, 1641, to im- 
mersion is clear and decisive. Throughout this 
discussion Barber takes dipping for granted and 
gives reasons why infant baptism should not pre- 
vail. The full title of his book is: *" A small 
treatise of baptisme, or dipping, wherein is cleere- 
ly shewed that the Lord Christ ordained dipping 
for those only that profess repentance and faith. 
I. Proved by scriptures. 2. By arguments. 3. 
A paralell betwixt circumcision and dipping. 4. 
An answere to some objections by P. B. Psal. 
119, 130. By Edward Barber. Printed in the 
yeare 1641." 

I give a few extracts from Barber, and many 
more might be added: 

" The thesis that * Christ ordained dipping for 
those only that profess repentance and faith' is 
mentioned under four heads, viz.: 'i. Proved by 
Scriptures. 2. By Arguments. 3. A Parallel be- 
twixt circumcision and Dipping. 4. An Answere 
to some objections by P. B. Psal. 119. 130.' " 

* 1 quote from the original, but a reprint may be had from the 
Baptist Booi£ Concern, Louisville. Ky., for 10 cents. 



SOME WITNESSES. 165 

" But the dipping of beleevers is that good old 
way of Christ, and infants is not." (P. 14). 

** But for infants' dipping there is no expresse 
description of the persons, condition, time, where- 
as true dipping, which is that one dipping Ephes. 
4. 5., which is the dipping of repentance for remis- 
sion of sinnes, Mark i. 4. it is most evidently 
and faithfully set down for persons, conditions 
and times, viz.," etc. (P. 15). 

"Thus for true dipping there is a certain time 
appointed as was for circumcision, Acts 8. 37. yea 
commanded, Acts 10. 48." (P. 16). 

" So that this covenant standeth between God 
and man, manifested by Holy Writ is: That as 
there is but one Lord; one Faith; and one Dip- 
ping, Eph. 4. 5. which is the Dipping of Repent- 
ance for Remission of sinnes, Mark i. 4. so there 
is but one way of entrance into the Covenant 
under the Gospel," etc. (P. 18). 

" Quest. 5. But what is the true ordinance of 
the dipping of Christ, and wherein doth it differ 
from childrens Dipping, which is the best way to 
show the truth; ^nd what benefit doth Beleevers 
receive by it." (P. 19). 

" Eighthly, that the Beleever may in that day 
roll away all the reproach of Egypt, or Antichris- 
tianisme, renouncing the marke of the Beast in 
our right hands, by holding or fighting for him, or 
in our forehead. Revel. 13. 14. by dipping of 
Infants, that false Constitution of Rome to beget 
grece, thus it is cleere: who are the true subjects 
of Dipping, And who are not." (P. 21). 

" In short, all these holy ends that God aimed 



166 DID THEY DIP ? 

at in true dipping, are wholly made voide, and of 
no effect in the dipping of Infants, which the 
Lord 67^m/ commanded not. Jere. 7.3. i. Revel. 
22. 18. Matth. 28. 19. 20. nor came into hisheart." 
(P. 22). 

"6. If the dipping of Infants be God's Ordi- 
nance, Christ was not so faithfuU over his House 
a Sonne, as Moses a servant was; For Moses made 
and set out all things, according to the patterne, 
Heb. 8. 5. but if Christ received any patterne for 
dipping infants, he hath left no rule for it, by 
precept, or example." (P. 23). 

" But the dipping of Infants was never heard of 
in all the Institutions of Christ, or preachings of 
the Apostles," etc. (P. 30). 

The book nowhere intimates that there were 
ever any Baptists who practiced sprinkling, or 
that the immersion of believers was a new thing. 
Dr. Whitsitt makes the following quotation from 
Barber: 

Beloved Reader, it may seem strange that in these 
times when such abundance of Knowledge of the Gospell is 
professed in the World, that there should notwithstanding 
be generally such ignorance, especially in and amongst those 
that professe themselves Ministers thereof, of that glorious 
principle True Baptisine or Dipping, Ephe. 4, 6, Instituted 
by the Lord Jesus Christ, which all that look — for life and 
salvation by him ought to be partakers of; it being that 
onely which was received by the Apostles and Primitive 
Churches, and for a long time unviolably kept and prac- 
ticed by the Ministerie of the Gospel in the planting of the 
first Churches, and that the Lord should raise up mee a 
poore Tradesman to devulge this glorious Truth, to the 
World's Censuring. (Pp. 112, 113). 

Even if Barber had said that believers' immer- 
sion was a new thing in England that would not 
have made it so. Prof. Vedder makes answer to 
this point: 



SOME WITNESSES. 167 

'• But a thing is not necessarily true because 
Barber says it; he was — as he frankly confesses, 
and his treatise attests it — an unlearned man, and 
was not acquainted with the history or literature 
of his own people. We positively know that he 
was not the first to ' devulge this glorious truth.'" 

But I can reply more directly in two ways: 

1. The word devulge does not mean to make 
known a thing for the first time. It does not 
mean that Barber was a discoverer. The word 
means only to publish a thing, according to Web- 
ster, and it may or may not have been known be- 
fore. Henry Denne, who was baptized in 1643, 
and had been since that date a preacher, was sent 
on a special mission, by the Baptist Church at 
Fenstanton, October 28, 1653, and it is said of 
him: 

" On that day he was chosen and ordained, by 
imposition of hands, a messenger to divulge the 
Gospel of Jesus Christ." (Adam Taylor's His- 
tory General Baptists, Vol. i., p. 150). 

No one would fail to know that the word 
meant in this passage simply to proclaim. 

2. The thing that Barber was to divulge, and 
his whole treaty shows it, was not dipping, but 
believers' baptism. He had been imprisoned for 
denying infant baptism and his release gave him 
an opportunity for affirming believers' baptism. 
His words are: 

^'By Edward Barber, (7///^^;^, and Merchant-Taylor 
of Londo7i; late Prisoner, for defiying the spri?ikli?ig 
of Infants, and requiri?ig tithes ?iow under the Gospel 
to be Gods Ordinance !' 



168 DID THEY DIP ? 

There is not a word in this entire book which 
could by any possible construction be forced to 
mean that immersion was a new thing. Indeed, 
in the very passage that Dr. Whitsitt quotes 
Barber claims: 

" Instituted by the Lord Jesus Christ, which all 
that look for life and Salvation by him ought to 
be partakers of, it being that onely which was re- 
ceived by the Apostles and Primitive Churches, 
and for a long time unviolably kept and practiced 
by the ministerie of the Gospel in the planting of 
the first Churches." 

But what about Barber himself? Crosby de- 
clares that he was baptized long before 164 1, and 
thus we have another witness to immersion before 
164 1. Crosby says: 

" Mr. Edward Barber, a gentleman of great 
learning, was first a minister in the established 
church, and embraced the principles of the Bap- 
tists, long before the breaking out of the civil 
wars. He was the means of convincing many 
that infant baptism had no foundation in Script- 
ure, and soon gathered a numerous congrega- 
tion." (Vol. III., p. 3). 

A very scholarly Baptist of those times was A. 
R., 1642, who wrote two books on the Vanity and 
Childishness of Infants Baptisme. The first book 
was against infant baptism as held in the Episco- 
pal Church and the second as held by Dissenters. 
A. R. readily refers to the Greek language. In 
the first part, in the beginning, there is a discus- 
sion of dipping. There is no intimation that it is 
a new thing. Indeed, every argument presented 



SOME WITNESSES. It>9 

by A. R. might be profitably used by a Baptist 
author of today. But Dr. Whitsitt makes a char- 
acteristic mistake, lie says: 

The work of A. R., which comes under notice in this 
place, is entitled: The Second Part of the Vanity and 
Childishness of Infants Baptisme, London, 1642. On 
page 29 of this Secojid Part Dr. Dexter has found the fol- 
lowing quotation, which demonstrates that A. R. did not 
take immersion for granted. (P. 119). 

Dr. Whitsitt here copies Dexter, mistake and 
all, and without any apparent effort to verify the 
passage. There is no such quotation in "the sec- 
ond part" of A. R.'s book. This so-called quota- 
tion is found in the first part. This goes to show 
that Drs. Dexter and Whitsitt are not accurate, 
and that they cannot be depended upon But as 
a matter of fact words have been placed in this 
quotation which change the meaning of the 
author. 

Dr. Whitsitt's ver- A. R.'s Words, 1642: 

sion, 1896: And if any shall think it 

If any shall thinke it strange and unlikely that all 
strange and unlikely that the godliest Divmes and 
all the godliest Divines and best churches should be 
best churches should be thus thus deceived on this point 
deceived on this point of of baptism for so many 
baptisme for so many yeares together, let him con- 
yeares together [i. e., as sider that all Christendome 
never before to know that (except here and there one, 
true baptism is dipping and o.i" some few, or no con- 
dipping alone true baptism] ; siderable n-umber) was swal- 
let them consider that all lowed up in grosse Popery 
Cristendome (except here lo^ many hundred yeares 
and there one, or some few, before Luther's time, which 
or no considerable number) was not until about 100 
was swallowed up in grosse yeares agone. 
Popery for many hundred 
yeares before Luther's time, 
which was not until about 
100 yeares agone. (Dexter, 
True Story, p. 49). 



170 DID THEY DIP ? 

You will notice that the words have been 
added: ["i. e., as never before to know that true 
baptism is dipping and dipping alone true bap- 
tism."] There is not a word about dipping in this 
quotation from A. R. nor for pages near it. The 
author has been made to say things he did not 
say. A. R. is singularly clear on dipping, but he 
did not have dipping under discussion at this time. 
This is manufactured testimony. 

A. R. met with a very bitter opponent by the 
name of William Cooke. Although he called his 
book a "Learned and Full Answer to a Treatise 
Intitled; the Vanity of Childish Baptisme" it is 
very certain he knew little of the Baptists and 
that he was a very bitter enemy, I give in full 
his third and fourth reasons against dipping as 
practiced by the Baptists: 

"Thirdly, this dousing over head, and under 
water that A. R. pleads for, as essential to bap- 
tisme, seems directly against the Sixth Com- 
mandment, and exposeth the person baptized to 
the danger of death. For first, suppose the party 
be fit for baptism (as they account) in the sharpe 
Winter as now beleeving, professing, &c. He 
must immediately be taken to the river (as his 
tenet seems to hold) and there plunged in over 
head and eares, though he came forth covered 
with yce. But if he escaped perishing with cold; 
how can he escape being choaked and stiffled 
with the water, to signifie his buriall: and, thirdly, 
be taken up, as this Disputer seems to reason? 
But whatsoever be the danger of freezing, or suf- 
focation; it seems this he holds the onely bap- 



SOME WITNESSES. 



171 



tisme, and must not therefore be swerved from." 
Then follows the fourth reason which Dr. Whit- 
sitt partly quotes; but he omits matters which are 
necessary to a complete understanding of this 
fourth reason. I will place side by side the origi- 
nal and Dr. Whitsitt's version. 



William Cooke's 
words, 1644 : 

Fourthly, will not this their 
new manner of dipping be 
found also against the Sev- 
enth Commandment in the 
Decalogue? For I would 
know with these new dip- 
pers, whether the parties to 
be dowsed and dipped, may 
be baptized in a garment or 
no? If they may, then hap- 
pily the garment may keep, 
the water from some part of 
the body, and then they are 
not rightly baptized; for the 
whole man, say they, must 
be dipped. Againe, I would 
aske what warrant they have 
for dipping, or baptizing 
garments, more than the 
Papists have for baptizing 
Bells? Therefore belike the 
parties must be naked, and 
multitudes present as at 
John's baptisme, and. the 
parties men and women of 
ripe yeares, as being able to 
make confession of their 
faith and repentance: yet 
though they both sinne 
against the Sixth Com- 
mandment, indangering life, 
and against all common 
honestie and civilitie, and 
Christian modestie required 
in the Seventh Command- 
ment, they must have this 
way observed, because they 



Dr. Whitsitt's v e r- 
sion, 1896: 

Fourthly, will not this 
their manner of dipping be 
found also against the Sev- 
enth Commandment in the 
Decalogue? For I would 
know with these new dip- 
pers whether the parties to 
be dowsed and dipped may 
be baptized in a garment or 
no? If they may then hap- 
pily the garment may keep 
the water from some part of 
the body, and then they are 
not rightly baptized; for the 
whole man, say they, must 
be dipped. Againe, I would 
aske what warrant they 
have for dipping or bap- 
tizing garments, more than 
the Paptists have for bap- 
tizing Bells? Therefore be- 
like the parties must be 
naked and multitudes pres- 
ent as at John's baptisme, 
and the parties men and 
women of ripe yeares, as 
being able to make a con- 
fession of their faith and re- 
pentance," etc. (Pp. 21, 22). 



172 DID THEY DIP ? 

fancie it the onely bap- 
tisme. Shall we thinke this 
way the baptisme of John, 
Christ and his Apostles?" 
(Pp. 21. 22). 

And this is the witness? Ar enemy, a man 
who must sustain his position by slander, and 
manifestly betrays ignorance. If his information 
had been equal to his knowledge his testimony 
would have been conclusive. Any one would 
know that these slanderous statements are justi- 
fied by no facts. And even this witness does not 
sustain Dr. Whitsitt. He says nothing about 1641, 
and while he calls dipping new he likewise makes 
the assertion that the Scriptures teach sprinkling. 
This is the only date he mentions. Does he 
mean that dipping is " new," since it was not 
taught in the Scriptures? And then dipping 
might have been "new" to him, and with his 
knowledge of the Baptists it may have been prac- 
ticed among them for a long time. He manifestly 
was ignorant of their rites and ceremonies. 

The Baptists in 1641 had a resolute and violent 
opponent in the person of Daniel Featley. He 
was born in 1582, and died in 1645. ^^ ^^'^^ lorig 
the determined opponent of the Baptists. In 1642 
he held a discussion with four Baptists in South- 
wark. His account of the discussion is to be 
found in "The Dippers Dipt; or, the Anabaptists 
Duckt and Plunged Over Head and Ears at a Dis- 
putation at Southwark." I have examined the 
first three and the sixth editions of this work. 
He was so bitter that he declared : "I could hardly 
dip my pen in any thing but gall." He nowhere 



SOME WITNESSES. 173 

intimates that the Baptists or dipping were novel- 
ties. In the Epistle Dedicatory, Featley says: 

" Now, of all Heretic ks a?id Schis?naticks, tlie Ana- 
baptist in three regards ought to bee most carefully 
looked i?ito, and severely puiiished, if ?wt utterly 
extermi7iated and batiished out of the Church a7id 
Kingdo7nr 

His reasons are as follows: 

" First, hi regard of their affiiuty with jna?iy other 
damnable Heretiques, both Ajicient and Later, for they 
are allye-d unto, and may claim kindred with." 

And then he gives a catalogue of all manner 
of heretics: 

" Seco?idly. hi regard of their audacious attempts 
upo7i Church a7id State, a7id their i7isolent acts com- 
mitted i7i the face of the Sun, a7id in the eye of the 
high Court of Parlia7ne7it. ' ' 

Under this second heading Featley says: 

" They preach, a7id pri7it, a7id practise their He- 
retic all i7npieties ope7ily, and hold their Co7ive7iticles 
weekly i7i our chief Cities, a7id Suburbs thereof, and 
there prophesie by tur7ies ; a7id {that I may use the 
phrase ^/ Tertullian) aedificantur in ruinam, they 
build one another in the faith of their Sect, to the 
ruine of their souls; they flock i7i great mtdtitudes 
to their Jordans, a7id both Sexes e7iter in\.o the River, 
and are dipt after their manner, with a kind 
of spell co7itai7ii7ig the head of their erroneous Te7iets, 
a7id their e7igagei7ig themselves i7i their Scismaticall 
Covenants, a7id {if I 7nay so speake) combination 
of separation. A7id as they defile our Rivers with 
their impure washings, a7id our Pidpits with their 
false Prophecies, a7id Pha7iaticall E7ithusiasmes, so the 



174 DID THEY DIP? 

Presses sweat a?id groaiie under the load of their 
blasphemies. For they print not only Afiabaptisme , 
from whence they take their name ; but majiy other 
most damiiable doctrines, tending to cam all liberty, 
Familisme, and a medley and hodge-podge of all 
ReligioiisT 

" Thirdly. In regard to the pectdiar maligiiity this 
heresie hath to 7nagistracy ," etc. 

He then proceeds to say that " with these 
Hereticks I enter into Lists in the ensuing 
Tractate." He then proceeds to tell us that he 
has known these " new upstart sectaries " for 
twenty years near his own home. His words 
are: 

" As Solinus writeth, that in Sardinia where there 
is a venemous serpent called Solifuga, {whose biting 
is present deatJi) there is also at ha?id a fountain, iii 
which they who wash themselves after they are 
bit, are presently cured. This venemous serpent {vere 
SoYiiugd) flying from, and shuiining the light of GocTs 
Word, is the Anabaptist, who in these later times first 
shewed his shilling head and speckled skin, a?id thrust 
out his sting near the place of my reside?tce for more 
than tweiity yeers!' 

Here we have the explicit testimony of Featley 
that the Baptists were dippers as far back as 
1620 Prof. Vedder very truthfully says: 

" These words of Dr. Featley are specially 
significant. He professes to speak of Baptists 
from personal knowlege, and though he was 
bitterly prejudiced, there is no reason why he 
should exaggerate in such a particular. Since he 
wrote in 1644, his 'twenty years,' howev^er care- 



SOME WITNESSES. 175 

lessly he used the phrase, evidently carry the 
date of immersion far back of 1641." 

There is also a conclusive passage in The Pref- 
ace to the Reader. By leaving off some sentences 
Dr. Whitsitt makes Featley give a date to the in- 
troduction of immersion in England which Feat- 
ley does not give. Featley begins with the Ana- 
baptists in Germany in the time of Stock; that he 
was a blockhead and kindled a fire out of the 
chips from this block, that this fire was in Eng- 
land in the time of Elizabeth and other sov- 
ereigns, and that lately it has burned very 
brightly. This is a very different thing from what 
Dr. Whitsitt makes Featley say. I give the two 
versions in parallel columns. 

Featley's words, 1644: Dr. Whitsitt's version, 

Of whom we inay say, 1896: 
as Irenaeus sometime spake 
of the Heretick Ebon, the 
Father of the Ebo?iites,_ his 
name in the Hebrew signi- 
fyeth silly, or simple, and 

such God wat was he: 5^ ' 

we may say, the name of the 
father of the Anabaptists 
signifieth in Etiglish a sense- 
lesse piece of wood <?r block, 
and a very blockhead was 
he: yet out of this block were 
cut those chips that kindled 
such a fire in Germany, Hal- 
satia, and Suevia that could 
not be fully quenched, no not 
with the b loud of 1^0,000. of 
them killed in war, or put to 
death in severall places by 
Magistrates. 

This fire in the reigns of 
Q. Elizabeth and K. James 
and our gracious Sovereign, 
till now, was covered in Eng- 



176 



DID THEY DIP ? 



But of late, he says, 
since the unhappy distrac- 
tions which our sins have 
brought upon us, the Tempo- 
rail Sword being other ways 
e?nployed and the Spirituall 
locked up fast i7i the Scab- 
bard, this sect among others 
hath so far presumed upon 
the patience of the State that 
it hath held weekly Con- 
venticles, rebaptized hun- 
dreds of men and women to- 
gether in the twilight, in 
Rivelets and some arms of 
the Thames and Elsewhere, 
dipping them over head and 
ears. 



lan.l under the ashes ; or if 
it brake out at any time, by 
the care of the Ecclesiasticall 
and Civil Magistrate, it was 
soon put out. But of late 
since the unhappy distrac- 
tions which our sins have 
brought upon us, the Tempo- 
rail Sword being other ways 
employed, and the Spirituall 
locked up fast in the scab- 
bard, //z/v sect, among others, 
hath so far presimied upon 
the patience of the State that 
it hath held weekly Conven- 
ticles, re-baptized himdreds 
of men and women together 
in the twilioht in Rivilets, 
and some arms of the Thames 
and elsewhere, dipping them 
oijer head aiid ears. It hath 
printed divers pajnphlets in 
defense of their Heresie, yea 
and challenged some of our 
Preachers to disputatioji. 
Now although ?ny be7it hath 
been hitherto against the 
most daTigerous eneiny of our 
Chu7-ch and State, the fesuit, 
to extinguish such balls of 
wildfire as they have cast in 
the bosome of our Church, 
yet seeing this strange pre 
kindled in the neighbouring 
parishes, and 7na7iy Nadabs 
and Abihu's offering it 07i 
God's Altar, / thought it 77iy 
duty to cast the waters of 
Siloam 7ipo7i it to exti7iguish 
it. 

There is still another proof from Featley that 
the Baptists dipped and that dipping was the 
practice of the Anabaptists on the Continent and 
in England from the time of Henry VIII. Feat- 
ley was answering a tract, which we quote in an- 
other place, written by A. R. The title of this 



SOME WITNESSES. 177 

book was the Vanity of Childrens Baptisme, in 
which the author declares dipping to be the only 
act of baptism. Featley does not deny that this 
was the way the Anabaptists performed this act 
nor does he say that it was a new thing, but rather 
affirms what the author says and goes on to de- 
clare that the Anabaptists always dipped. You 
will remember that A. R. wrote in the year 1642, 
and here is the answer that Featley makes to this 
English Baptist: 

" At Ztirick after many disputations between 
Zuinglms and the ^?z^baptists, the Senate made 
an Act, that if any presumed to rebaptize those 
that were baptized before, they should be 
drowned. 

** At Vienna many Ajiabaptists were so tyed to- 
gether in chains, that one drew the other after 
him into the river, wherein they were all suffo- 
cated. {Vide Supra, p. 61). 

" Here you may see the hand of God in pun- 
ishing these sectaries some way answerable to 
their sin according to the observation of the wise 
man (Gastius, p. 18), quo quis peccat eo ptiniatur, 
they who drew others into the whirl-pool of 
errour, by constraint draw one another into the 
river to be drowned; and they who prophaned 
baptisme by a second dipping, rue it by a third 
immersion. But the punishment of these Cata- 
baptists we leave to them that have the Legislative 
power in their hands, who though by present 
connivence they may seem to give them line : yet, 
no doubt, it is that they more entangle themselves 
and more easily bee caught. For my part, I seek 



178 DID THEY DIP ? 

not the confusion of their persons, but the co?if7isio?i 
of their errours, two whereof A. R. undertaketh 
strenuously to defend." (P. 73). 

The two "errours" which A. R. " strenuously 
defended" were immersion and believers' baptism. 
Featley declares that these were the common 
errors of the Anabaptists in England and else- 
where. Featley in another place, after quoting 
the law as given above, says: 

'' Let the punishment bear upon it the print of the 
sin: for as these sectaries drew one another into 
their errors, so also into the gulfe; and as they 
drowned men spiritually by re-baptizing, and so 
prophaning the holy sacrament, so also they were 
drowned corporally. In the year of our Lord, 
1539, two Anabaptists were burned beyond South- 
wark, in Nezvingto/i ; and a little before them, five 
Dutch Anabaptists were burned in Smithfield." 

(P-57)- 

Here is a direct admission that the Anabaptists 
of England, as early as 1539, were dippers. 

Dr. Featley quotes the article on dipping, which 
is given elsewhere, from the Confession of 1644 
and then says: 

"This Article is wholly sowred with the new 
leaven of Anabaptisme: I say neiv leaven, for it 
cannot be proved that any of the antient Anabap- 
tists maintained any such position, there being 
three wayes of baptizing, either by dipping, or 
washing, or sprinkling, to which the Scriptures 
alludeth in sundry places: the Sacrament is right- 
ly administered by any of the three; and whatso- 
ever is here alleged for dipping, we approve of, 



SOME WITNESSES. 179 

SO farre as it excludeth not the other two." (P. 
182). 

Dr. Whitsitt quotes this passage with evident 
delight. 

Unhappily for Dr. Whitsitt, and " happily for us," 
the passage is perfectly clear when we consult 
Featley, and know exactly what he did say. It 
is very evident from this passage that there were 
two classes of Anabaptists, the " antient" and the 
" new." Featley divided the Anabaptists into 
three classes, two ancient and one " new." He 
says: 

"The first broached their Doctrine about the 
year 250, which was this: Tliat all those zvho had 
been baptized by Novatus, or any other Heretic ks, 
ought to be rebaptized by the orthodox Pastors of the 
Church. 

"The second broached theirs about the year 
380, which was this: That none zvere rightly bap- 
tized but those that held with Donatus, a7id conse- 
que7itly, that all others who had received Baptisme in 
the Catholic Church, by any other save those of his 
party, ought to be rebaptized. 

"The third broached theirs in the year 1525, 
which was this: That Baptisme ought to be admin- 
istered by 7ioney but such as can give a good account 
of their Faith; andi?i case any have been baptized iii 
their Infancy, that they ought to be rebaptized after 
they come to years of discression, before they are to 
be admitted to the Church of Christ!' (P. 28). 

Now it is clear that Featley regards the " new" 
as dating back to 1525, or 126 years before 1641. 
And in giving an account of the tenets of these 



180 DID THEY DIP ? 

Anabaptists since the Reformation he says the 
first tenet, which is '' peculiar to their sect'' is "that 
none are rightly baptized but those who are 
dipped." (P. 36). 



OTHER WITNESSES. 181 

CHAPTER X. 

OTHER WITNESSES. 

In 1644 an anonymous author wrote a tract 
called the Loyall Convert. Of this tract Dr. 
Whitsitt says: 

The first of these belongs to the year 1644 and is 
entitled "The New Distemper,' written by the author of 
the " Loyal Convert." Dr. Dexter, who appears to be the 
only person that has examined this pamphlet, reports that 
"the whole book takes its name as an attack upon the 
' prophanations ' of these dippers." (" True Story," page 
50, with note). Dipping being for the author a " new dis- 
temper," it is manifest that he did not take it for granted, 
but was perfectly aware of the change from pouring or 
sprinkling to immersion, which took place in the year 1641. 
(Pp. 134, 135). 

I did not have this tract in hand, so I wrote to 
the British Museum in regard to it. The reply 
was: ''There is nothing in this tract, either on 
dipping or infant baptism or rebaptism. It is 
simply on the subject of church government and 
reforming the Liturgie." 

I. Knutton wrote a book, 1644, against the Bap- 
tists called Seven Qvestions abovt the Controver- 
sie betweene the Chvrch of England and the 
Separatists and Anabaptists. Dr. Whitsitt thus 
refers to him: 

" In that place (p. 23) Mr. Knutton had said, 
' this opinion [of rebaptizing by dipping] being 
but new and upstart, there is good reason they 
should disclaim it and be humbled for it.' (Dexter, 
True Story, p. 50). No finer opportunity was ever 
presented to deny a charge with indignation if it 
had been untrue." (P. 123). 



182 DID THEY DIP ? 

Knutton said no such thing. Here are his words 
in answer to query 5.: "Whether it is lawful to 
be baptized or no? When they heard this they 
were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, and 
when Paul laid his hands upon them the Holy 
Ghost came on them and they spake with tongues 
and prophesied. So that there is no ground for 
rebaptization. Wherefore Separatist does very ill 
opposing our baptizing of infants, as proved be- 
fore Lydia with all her household were baptized; 
likewise we find no negative precept against pae- 
dobaptism. Then such as oppose it do ill; for 
they follow those pestilent heretics called Ana- 
baptists in Germany, who sprang up there (when 
the light of the gospel began to shine) not very 
long since, being but new and upstart, there is 
good reason they should disclaim it and be hum- 
bled for it." 

There is not a word in regard to dipping in this 
quotation. And the words "new and upstart" 
have reference to " Luther's time," and not to 
1641. 

Ephraim Pagett, 1645, i^ ^^- W'hitsitt's next 
witness. He declares there were fourteen kinds 
of Anabaptists, and following his method of 
enumeration he could have numbered a thousand 
kinds just as well. John Stoughton in his 
Ecclesiastical History of England, From the 
opening of the Long Parliament to the death of 
Oliver Cromwell, says of Pagett: 

*' Certain parties under the Commonwealth had 
the habit, and the fashion still exists, of exagera- 
ting the number of religious denominations. 



OTHER WITNESSES. 183 

Ephraim Pagitt in his ' Heresiography,' published 
in 1654, gives a list of between forty and fifty 
sects, the historical worth of which enumeration 
we may estimate, when we observe that he dis- 
tinguishes between Anabaptists and plunged 
Anabaptists, between Separatists and Semi- 
Separatists, between Brownists and Barrowists 
and then proceeds to specify three orders of 
Familists." (P. 365). 

It is very certain that Stoughton has no very 
high regard for the authority of " Old Ephraim," 
as Pagett was contemptuously called. 

Masson's description of " Old Father Ephraim " 
is rich. He says: 

*' A well-known personage in London, of hum- 
bler pretensions than Featley was a certain 
Ephraim Pagett (or Pagit), commonly called 
* Old Father Ephraim,' who had been parson of 
the church of St. Edmund, in Lombard Street, 
since 1601, and might therefore have seen and 
been seen by Shakespeare. Besides other trifles, 
he had published in 1635 a book called * Christian- 
ographia,' or a descriptive enumeration of the 
various sorts of Christians in the world out of the 
pale of the Roman Catholic Church. Perhaps 
because he had thus acquired a fondness for the 
statistics of religious denominations, it occurred 
to him to write, by way of sequel, a * Heresiog- 
raphy; or a Description of the Heretics and Sectaries 
of these later times' It was published in 1645, 
soon after Featley's book, from which it borrows 
hints and phrases. There- is an Epistle Dedica- 
tory to the Lord Mayor and aldermen of the city 



184 DID THEY DIP ? 

of London very similar in its syntax and punc- 
tuation, and containing this touching appeal: ' I 
have lived among you almost a jubilee, and seen 
your great care and provision to keep the city 
free from infection, in the shutting up of the sick 
and in carrying them to your pest houses, in 
setting warders t.o keep the whole from the sick, 
in making of fires and in perfuming the streets, 
in resorting to your churches, in pouring out your 
prayers to Almighty God, with fasting and alms, 
to be propitious to you. The plague of heresy is 
greater, and you are now in more danger than 
when you buried five thousand a week.' Then 
after an epistle to the reader, signed * Old Ephraim 
Pagit,' there follows the body of the treatise in 
about i6o pages. The Anabaptists are taken first 
and occupy 55 pages; but a great many other 
sects are subsequently described, some in a few 
pages, some in a single paragraph. There is an 
engraved title page to the volume, containing 
small caricatures of six of the chief sort of sec- 
taries, Anabaptism being represented by one 
plump, naked fellow dipping another, much 
plumper, who is reluctantly stooping down on all- 
fours. The book, like Featley's, seems to have 
sold rapidly. In the third edition, published in 
1646, there is a postscript in which the poor old 
man tells us that it had cost him much trouble. 
The Sectaries among his own parishoners had 
quarreled with him on account of it, and refused 
to pay him his tithes; nay, as he walked in the 
streets he was hooted at and reviled, and some- 
body had actually affirmed ' Doctor Featley's 



OTHER WITNESSES. 185 

devil to be transmitted into Old Ephraim Paget ' 
This seems to have cut him to the quick, though 
he avows his sense of inferiority in learning to 
the great Doctor. In short, we can see Father 
Ephraim as a good old silly body, of v/hom people 
make fun." (Life of John Milton, Vol. III., p. 139). 

This picture is not overdrawn. My edition, 
1647, i^ the Postscript, tells plainly that the 
" Sectaries," even of his own congregation, would 
not pay tithes because, they said, he had slan- 
dered them. Here is a book confessedly repudi- 
ated by the Anabaptists, and yet this very book 
is one of Dr. Whitsitt's principal testimonies. 
Surely we are not to believe the enemies of the 
Anabaptists when they directly say that they are 
slandered. Certainly we would not expect this 
from a Baptist! 

Dr. Whitsitt makes this quotation under Pagett: 

Yea at this day they have a 7iew crochet come into their 
heads, that all that have not been plunged nor dipt under 
water, are not truly baptized, and these also they rebaptize: 
And this their error ariseth from ignorance of the Greek 
word Baptize, which signifieth no more then washing or 
ablution, as Hesychus, Stephanus, Scapulae, Budeus, great 
masters of the Greek tongue, m.ake good by many instances 
and allegations out of many authors. (P. 30). 

But this quotation, as it stands, out of its con- 
nection, does not properly reflect the mind 
of Pagett. He had been discussing fourteen 
kinds of Anabaptists, and declared they were 
constantly changing their minds. He now comes 
to the Anabaptists who originated in the times of 
Luther, and these Anabaptists had taken up this 
" new crotchet." He then proceeded to argue 
that sprinkling was permitted in the Scriptures 



DID THEY DIP .'' 



and sometimes it had been permitted in practice. 
But he declares that both dipping and sprinkling 
were allowed in his church. His words are: 

"And both are allowed by our church; and 
sprinkling hath been rather used among us, by 
reason of the coldness of our climate, and the ten- 
derness of our infants." (P. 31), 

He emphatically declares that dipping was then 
in practice, and that it was not a new thing. The 
trouble with the Anabaptists is that they would 
not recognize sprinkling. That was the conten- 
tion of Pagett. He mentions no date and says 
nothing about 1641. He contends that "true 
baptism to be as well by sprinkling as by dip- 
ping." (P. 31). But the Anabaptists did not 
think so, and so Pagett proceeds to say: 

" Of their manner of rebaptizing, and other 
rites. They flock in great multitudes to their 
Jordajis, and both Sexes enter into the River and 
are dipt after their manner with a kind of spell, 
containing the heads of their erroneous Tenets, 
and their ingaging themselves schismaticall Cov- 
enants and combination of separation. In the 
Thames and Rivers, the Baptizer and the party 
baptized goe both into the Rivers, and the parties 
to be baptized are dipt or plunged under water." 

(Pp. 32, 33)- 

The careful reader will at once recognize these 
as the words of Dr. Featley. Such was Ephraim 
Pagett. 

Dr. Whitsitt introduces as a witness Robert 
Baillie, 1646, a violently prejudiced Scotchman. 
He had some opportunities for observation, and 



OTHER WITNESSES. 187 

had he been less prejudiced and more honest his 
testimony would have some weight. He says in 
the margin: "The pressing of dipping and the 
exploding of sprinkling is but an yesterday con- 
ceit of the English Anabaptists." 

And his statement in the body of the book is: 
" Among the new inventions of the late Ana- 
baptists, there is none which with greater animos- 
ity they set on foot, then the necessity of dipping 
over head and ears, then the nullity of affusion 
and sprinkling in the administration of baptisme. 
Among the old Anabaptists, or those over the sea 
to this day so farre as I can learn, by their writs 
or any relation that yet has come to my ears, the 
question of dipping and sprinkling came never 
upon the table. As I take it, they dip none, but 
all whom they baptize they sprinkle in the same 
manner as is our custome. The question about 
the necessity of dipping seems to be taken up only 
the other year by the Anabaptists in England, as 
a point which alone they conceive is able to carry 
their desire of exterminating infant baptisme; for 
they know that parents upon no consideration will 
be content to hazard the life of their tender in- 
fants by plunging them over 'head and ears in a 
cold river. Let us, therefore, consider if this 
sparkle of new light have any derivation from the 
lamp of the Sanctuary, or the Sun of righteous- 
nesse, if it be according to Scripturall truth or any 
good reason." ( Anabaptism, the True Fountaine 
of Independency, &c., p. 163-. London, 1646). 

Upon these words Dr. Whitsitt puts forward 
this argument: 



188 DID THEY DIP i 

Baillie in the above pa sage expressly declares that dip- 
ping was *' a new mvention of the late Aiiabaptists" *' an 
yesterday cojiceit of the English Anabaptists,' " takefi up 
onely the other year,'' ' a sparkle of new light." He does 
not indicate the precise year in which it was introduced, 
but these expressions agree to a nicety wiih the position 
that this event took place only about five years before he 
published his book. Every v^ or 1 of his testimony confirms 
the deliverance of the Jessey Church Records to the effect 
that prior to the year 1640 "none had so practiced in Eng- 
land to professed believers," wh le in the year 1641 the 
change from pouring and sprinkling to immersion was duly 
inaugurated. 

But Baillie's testimony and Dr. Whitsitt's 
claims are open to several very serious draw- 
backs, viz.: 

1. Baillie nowhere says the Baptists began 
dipping in 1641. It might have been an hundred 
years before this, for the word *' new," as we have 
seen, is a very flexible one on the pen of this 
class of controversialists. 

2. Baillie is very guarded in his language. He 
does not speak positively, for he only says that 
" seems to be taken up," " so far as I can learn," 
** that has come to my ears," "as I take it," etc. 
He does not say that dipping is a new thing, but 
the pressing of dipping and the exploding of 
sprinkling is a yesterday conceit. Yet it is upon 
these evasive statements that Dr. Whitsitt founds 
one of his principal arguments. 

3. Baillie distinctly holds and maintains with 
the same process of guarded words that infant 
sprinkling is taught in the Word of God. Indeed* 
this very passage says that dipping is not recent 
" but a sparkle of new light," because it is not 
Scriptural. Baillie says: 

" Consider farther, that we doe not oppose the 



OTHER WITNESSES. 189 

lawfulnesse of dipping in some cases, but the ne- 
cessity of it in all cases: Neither do they impugn 
the expediency of sprinkling in some cases, but the 
lawfulnesse of it in any case. So both their doc- 
trine and practice makes the state of the question 
to be this; Whether in Baptisme it be necessary 
to put the whole baptized person over head and 
ears in the water or if it be lawful! and sufficient, at 
least in some cases, to poure or sprinkle the 
water upon the head of the person baptized? For 
the lawfulnesse of the sprinkling and against the 
necessity of dipping. I reason thus. First, that 
action which the Spirit of God in divers Script- 
ures expresses formally by the name of baptisme 
is lawfuU and expedient to be used in baptism. 
But sprinkling and pouring out of water upon the 
party baptized without any dipping is by the 
Spirit of God in divers Scriptures formally ex- 
pressed by the name of baptisme." (P. 164). 

4. Baillie on this very point of dipping among 
the Anabaptists contradicts himself. Baillie here 
says that it is " a yesterday conceit," and that 
it is the '* new invention of the late Anabaptists." 
But elsewhere in this book he declares that the 
Anabaptists practiced dipping. In Chapter I. he 
says: 

" Who are pleased to read the late little accu- 
sate and learned treatise of Clopenbiirgh may per- 
ceive that the Memio?iist dippers do oppose the 
truth of Christ's human nature." 

Here is a direct refutation, from Dr. Whitsitt's 
principal witness, of the position that he has taken 
that Mennonites practiced sprinkling. 



190 DID THEY DIP ? 

In Chapter II. Baillie says : 

" For the stricter ingagement of the Saints and 
godly party their adherents, and for the clearer 
distinction of them from the prophane multitude 
of all other congregations they thought meet to 
put upon them the mark and character of a new 
Baptisme, making them renounce their old as 
null, because received in their infancy, and in a 
false church. At the beginning this rebaptization 
was but a secondary and less principall doctrine 
among them, for Muncer himself was never re- 
baptized, neither in his own person did he re-bap- 
tize any, yet, thereafter it became a more essen- 
tial note of a member of their church, and the 
crying down of infants baptism came to be a most 
principall and distinctive doctrine of all in their 
way. Unto their new gathered churches of re- 
baptized and <3'z/'/<f(^ saints they did ascribe very 
ample privileges," etc. (P. 32). 

In Chapter IV. Baillie says of the Anabaptists: 

" Sixthly, they esteem sprinkling no baptism 
at all; they will have the whole body to be plunged 
over head and ears in the water; this circumstance 
of plunging they account so necessary and essen- 
tial to baptism, that the change thereof into 
sprinkling makes the baptism to be null." (P. 91). 

And in Chapter V. he says: 

"Although many of the Tenets mentioned in 
the former chapter may be dissembled and denied 
by divers of this sect, yet all of them will acknowl- 
edge as their own, whatever almost is practiced 
either by the Independents or Brownists, and 
besides, two Tenets more, Antipedobaptism and 



OTHER WITNESSES. 191 

Dipping. All who carry the name of Anabap- 
tisme, though, through ignorance, they know not; 
or through better instruction they dissent from 
many positions of their brethren, yet will avowedly, 
and oft with passion, professe their mind against 
the sprinkling of infants, pedorantisme, to all 
of them I ever heard of is an abomination." 
(Page 137). 

Here in the same book, by the same author, 
are found a passage which declared the Anabap- 
tists practiced sprinkling and four which say they 
practiced dipping. I am not responsible for this 
contradiction. Yet this is Dr. Whitsitt's witness. 

5. We can prove by the Baptist Confession 
of Faith of 1644 that Baillie was guilty of slan- 
der. That Confession declared: 

"The word baptizo signifies to dip or plunge 
(yet so as convenient garments be both upon 
the Administrator and subject, with all modesty)." 

This same declaration was made by other Bap- 
tists. Mr. Richardson, a very able Baptist, whom 
Baillie quotes in his book, is pleased to say 
of nude baptism, as charged by Dr. Featley: 

" But saith the Doctor, they goe men and 
women together stark naked into their Jordans 
(pp. 36 and 203). Wee answer, wee abhor it, and 
deny that ever any of us did so, and challenge 
him to prove it, against us, if he can; and if he 
cannot, it is fit, he should be known for a slan- 
derer, if he deserve no punishment for it." 
(Some Brief Considerations, p. 11. London, 
Feby. 25, 1645). 

In the face of these denials Baillie affirms: 



192 DID THEY DIP ? 

" As for chastity, must it not be a great scan- 
dall, in the face of all the Congregation where 
alone, Sacraments can be duly celebrated, for men 
and women to stand up naked, as they were born; 
and naked men to go into the water with naked 
women, holding them in their arms till they have 
plunged them into the water? " (Ch. VII). 

Here Baillie manifestly bore false witness 
against the Anabaptists. If we do not believe 
Baillie in this matter, why should we in the 
other? 

6. Baillie attacked the motives of the Anabap- 
tists, and called them liars. In the margin of the 
chapter from wh;ch Dr. Whitsitt takes his quota- 
tion are these words: "The lying spirit of Ana- 
baptisme." (Page 163). If you will notice the 
extract which Dr. Whitsitt gives, you will see 
that Baillie attacks the motives of the Anabaptists. 
He says: 

"The question about the necessity of dipping 
seems to be taken up only the other year by the 
Anabaptists in England, as a point which alone, 
as they conceive, is able to carry their desire 
of exterminating infant baptism; for they know 
that parents, upon no consideration, will be con- 
tent to hazard the life of their tender infants by 
plunging them over head and ears in a cold river." 

How did Baillie know that the Anabaptists 
were not honest in the belief that they were 
following the Scriptures, and that their only motive 
in dipping was to " exterminate infant baptism? " 

Baillie goes further, and charges the Baptists 
with hypocrisy, and that they did not believe the 



OTHER WITNESSES. 193 

Confession of 1644, and that it was only put forth 
to mislead. His words are: 

"Their ways as yet are not well known; but 
a little time it seems will discover them, for their 
singular zeal to propagate their way will not per- 
mit them long to lurk; only the Confession of faith, 
which the other year seven of their Congregations 
did put forth, and late again in a second corrected 
Edition, have set out with a bold preface to both 
the Houses of Pari.; may no more be taken for 
the measure of this faith, then that Confession, 
which the Elder brethren in Holland did not long 
ago in. the name of all their company." 

Surely no one will endorse this prejudiced on- 
slaught and slander of Baillie's; and yet this is 
the man whom we are asked to follow. 

7. Baillie was the bitter enemy of the Anabap- 
tists and desired their destruction. The passages 
which Thave taken from his writings to this effect 
are so numerous that I cannot give them all. A 
few selections must suffice. He says: 

" We have ended our directorie for baptism. 
Thomas Goodwin one day was exceedinglie con- 
founded. He has undertaken a publicke lecture 
against the Anabaptists ; it was said, under pretence 
of refuting them, he betrayed our cause to them; 
that if the Corinthians, our chief ground for the 
baptisme of infants^ * Your children are holy,' he 
expounded of reall holiness, and preached down 
our ordinarie and necessare distinction of reall 
and foederall holiness. Being passed hereupon 
he could no wayes cleare himselfe, and no man 
took his part. God permits these gracious men 



194 DID THEY DIP ? 

to be many wayes unhappie instruments; as yet 
their pride continues; but we are hopeful! the 
Parliament will not own their way so much as to 
tolerate it, if once they found themselves masters. 
For the time they are loath to cast them off, and 
to put their partie, lest they desert them." (The 
Letters and Journals of Robert Baillie, 1637-1662, 
Vol. II., p. 218). 

** Our next worke, to give our advyce what to 
doe for the suppressing of the Anabaptists, Anti- 
nomians, and other sectaries. This will be a hard 
work; yet so much as concerns us will be quicklie 
dispatched, I hope in one session." (P. 224). 

" We spent a number of sessions on some prop- 
ositions of advyce to the Parliament, for sup- 
pressing Antinomians, Anabaptists, and these who 
preaches a libertie for all religions. Even in 
these our good Independents found in great dif- 
ficultie; and, when we had carried our advyces 
against their minds, they offered to give in con- 
trare reasons to the Parliament." (P. 228). 

" Many of them preach and some print, a liber- 
tie of conscience, at least the great equitie of a 
toleration for all religions; that every man should 
be permitted, without any feare so much as of 
discountenance from the magistrate, to professe 
publicklie his conscience, were he ever so errone- 
ous, and also live according thereunto, if he trou- 
ble not the public peace by any seditious or 
wicked practice." (P. 254). 

Professor Vedder, after giving a number of 
quotations to this effect from Baillie, remarks: 

" But enough, and more than enough, of quota- 



OTHER WITNESSES. 195 

tions like these. Surely, no scholar who has an 
atom of reputation to lose will venture to deny, 
in the face of the proofs that have been produced, 
that the Scotch Presbyterians, at least, advocated 
persecuting principles of the plainest kind. 
Were it worth the while equally satisfactory 
proofs might be produced that these principles 
were carried out into appropriate action." (Bap- 
tist Quarterly Review, January-July, 1884). 

A man who would not tolerate free speech and 
liberty of conscience among the Anabaptists, and 
worked for severe legislative enactments against 
them, could not be expected to be impartial in 
his statements about them. Such a man was 
Robert Baillie. 

8. Baillie was a Scotchman, and he thought that 
Anabaptism would be contrary to the peace of 
Scotland, and therefore he did all in his power to 
cast reproach upon them. Hanbury, one of the 
foremost writers on Congregational matters, after 
referring to this book on ** Anabaptism," feels 
called upon to apologize for it. His words are: 

" The object of the author being to deal par- 
ticularly with the Baptists, so called, we feel it 
difficult, or invidious rather, to set out his positions 
in any way which shall not involve the present 
representatives of that denomination in some of 
the odium which he shows attaches to it. That 
the descendants have rolled away the reproach 
thus laid on their forefathers, is the shortest and 
most efficient answer to Baillie's representation, 
where he writes, ' The errors of the Anabaptists, 
and their divisions among themselves, are so 



196 DID THEY DIP ? 

many that to set them down distinctly and in 
good order, is a task which I dare not undertake; 
much less can I give assurance what is common to 
them all, and what proper to their several sects.' 
(P. 29). It will help to expose the political 
ground of his hostility by his nationality, thus: 
' This immoderate love of licentiousness * * * 
puts them upon a high degree of hatred and 
indignation against the Solemn League and 
Covenant, against the Scottish nation whence it 
came; as two great impediments to their quiet 
enjoying of that self-destroying and God-provok- 
ing liberty which, so passionately, they lust after. 
Though for fear and other base respects, many of 
them have swallowed down the Covenant in such 
equivocal senses as are evidently contrary both to 
the express words and known intentions of the 
States which enjoin it; yet since the time their 
strength and hopes are increased, these of them 
who pretend to ingenuity and courage do not 
only with bitterness reject it, but it is now become 
the object of their public invectives as the most 
unhappy plague that did ever come to England. 
(P. 57),'" (Historical Memorials, Vol. III., p. 223). 

Thus Hanbury continues at some length. 
When we consider this mixture of political hatred 
and religious intolerance I do not think from the 
writings of Robert Baillie that we would be justi- 
fied in reaching the conclusion that dipping was 
an " invention " among the Baptists about 1641. 

Another authority quoted by Dr. Whitsitt 
is J. Saltmarsh. He was a Quaker, and opposed 
to all baptism. Dr. Whitsitt says: 



OTHER WITNESSES. 



197 



Dr. Dexter also brings forward the performance of J. Salt- 
marsh, entitled, " The Smoke in the Temple, Wherein is a De- 
sign for Peace and Reconciliation of Believers of the several 
Opinions of these Times about Ordinances, to a Forbearance 
of each other in Love, and Meeknesse, and Humility," etc. 
London, 1645. Mr. Saltmarsh here pp. 15, 16, speaks 
of '* the dipping them in the vi^ater .... as the 
new baptism." (True Story, p. 60), showing that he was 
entirely aware of the recent change, from pouring and. 
sprinkling, to immersion. (Page 135). 

I am amazed at this quotation. I give parallel 

columns: 

John Saltmarsh, 1646: Dr. Whitsitt's ver- 

5. That the form by sion, 1 896: 
which they baptize, viz. 
I baptize thee in the name 
of the Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost, is a for??i of man's 
devising — a tradition of 
man, a new consequence 
drawn from supposition and 
probability — and not a form 
left by Christ, to say over 
them at the dipping them 
in the water : If Christ had 
said, when you baptize them, 
say this over them, I baptize 
thee in the name of the Fath- 
er, Son, and Holy Ghost ; 
and unless Jesus Christ had 
left this form thus made up 
to their hands, they practice 
a thing made up by them- 
selves, and drawn or forced 
out of Jesus Christ's words, 
in Matt. 28, 18. (Pp. 15, 16). 

One-half of the sentence used by Dr. Whitsitt 
from Saltmarsh I was able to find; but I read dil- 
igently for the phrase, " as the new baptism." If 
it is in Saltmarsh's book, it is certainly nowhere 
near the other words, "the dipping them in the 
water." This is marvelous in my eyes. 

I have been somewhat more successful with the 



" the dipping them in the 

water, as the new 

baptism." 



198 



DID THEY DIP ? 



next authority of Dr. Whitsitt, viz.: J. Parnell, 
1655. I parallel Dr. Whitsitt's quotation with the 
author's words: 



The words of J. Par- 
nell, 1655: 

Now within these late 
yeers the Light of Christ, 
beginning to stir peoples 
hearts, so that they come to 
see themselves in much 
darkness and ignorance of 
these things which they read 
of in the scripture, and also 
the corrupted of the Priests 
and Teachers, and what 
Reprobates they were con- 
cerning the faith, and that 
they profited not the people 
at all, but they had heard 
them so long, and still minds 
not being directed to the 
light, which showed them 
this, and should have led 
them out of this condition, 
upon which they should have 
waited for direction to have 
found the way of truth, but 
they run without to the Let- 
ter in their own wils and 
wisdome, and so would find 
out a way by their own wis- 
dome and imagination, and 
so went out to search the 
scripture, but with a wrong 
eye, giving their own mean- 
ings and interpretations 
upon the scripture, and one 
cries this is my judgment, 
and thus they are confound- 
ed and divided into their 
several Judgments and opin- 
ions, yet all still in one life 
and one nature, but onely 
confounded and divided in 
their Judgments of what the 
Prophets meant, and Christ 
meant, and which the Apos- 



Dr. Whitsitt's ver- 
sion, 1896: 

" Now within these late 
yeares 



OTHER WITNESSES. 199 

ties meant, but it is as a 

Book sealed, both to the 

learned and the unlearned, 

and none is found worthy to 

open the seals, who is the 

light wherein lies the minis- 
trie; as this is the cause why 

they whose mindes are from 

the light, are so divided and 

scattered in their judgments 

and opinions, and one sets 

up a forme in his imagina- 
tion, and another sets up a 

forme in his imagination 

and one runs abroad into 

the world with his wisdome, 
and he will go preach up his 
form and Judgment to be 
the truth, and another he 
will cry down that form for 
delusion, and preach up his 
form for a truth, and so 
many deceivers and false 
spirits, are entered into the 
world, and one cries, lo here 
is Christ if you can believe 
and be baptized you shall 
be saved; so they that can 
say that is the way, and that 

they believe Christ dyed for they (the Anabaptists) say 
them, then they must be . . . . . they must be 
dipped in the water, and that dipped in the water, and 
they call baptizing of them, that they call baptizing." 
and then they are of their (True Story, p. 51). 
church, and they call them- 
selves Saints, though they 
are still in the old nature. 
(Pp.16, 17). 

From the above it will appear that I have been 
able to find the first phrase " nowwithin these late 
yeers," and the last phrase " they must be dipped 
in the water, and that they call baptizing," but 
the middle phrase "they (the Anabaptists) say " 
does not appear. Did anyone ever see such 
garbling? And when we really find what the 



200 DID THEY DIP ? 

author did say there is nothing about 1641 or 
dipping being a new thing. This garbling Was 
done -by Dr. Dexter from whom Dr. Whitsitttook 
the quotation, without ever reading the original. 
These are but samples of many other cases that 
could be cited. 



A CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. 201 



CHAPTER XI. 

A CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. 

The challenge has been put forth to name three 
individual believers who were dipped before 1641. 
I accept the challenge and answer it in three 
ways: 

I. There existed in England whole churches 
of baptized believers before 164 1. I refer to 
another chapter for the existence and number of 
Baptist churches in England before 1641. In 
this connection I mention the names of only three 
churches. Goadby, who has written an able Bap- 
tist history, and the facts of which, so far as I 
know, have never been disputed, says: 

*' But the three churches we have mentioned — 
Hill Cliffe, Eythorne and Bocking — deservedly 
rank as the most ancient Baptist churches in Eng- 
land." (Goadby's Bye-Paths in Baptist History, 
p. 28. London, 1871). 

In regard to the Hill Cliffe Church, Rev. D. O. 
Davies, Rochdale, England, who attended the 
sessions of the Southern Baptist Convention, at 
Birmingham, gives an interesting account. He 
says: 

" The oldest Baptist church in the country is 
Hill Cliffe, in Cheshire, but on the borders of 
Lancashire. The old church was built in a secluded 
spot, far removed from public roads and enclosed 
by a thick wood. Tradition declares that the 
church is five hundred years old. A tombstone 



202 DID THEY DIP ? 

was recently discovered in the burial ground of 
the place, bearing date 1357. In digging the foun- 
dation to enlarge the old chapel, a large baptistery 
was discovered which was made of stone and well 
cemented. The baptistery must have belonged 
to a previous chapel. Oliver Cromwell worshipped 
at this church, and one of his officers occupied 
the pulpit. It is one of the pre-historic churches, 
and a regular Baptist church." (Shackleford's 
Compendium of Baptist History, p. 274. Louisville, 
1892). 

Here are some of the statements that I take 
from Goadby in reference to this church: 

" We have reliable evidence that a Separatist, 
and probably a Baptist church, has existed for 
several centuries in a secluded spot of Cheshire, 
on the borders of Lancashire, about a mile and a 
half from Warrington. No spot could be better 
chosen for concealment than the site on which 
this ancient chapel stood. Removed from all 
public roads, enclosed by a dense w^ood, affording 
ready access into two counties. Hill Cliffe was 
admirably suited for the erection of a ' conveiitic- 
tda illicita' an illegal conventicle. The ancient 
chapel built on this spot was so constructed that 
the surprised worshippers had half a dozen secret 
ways of escaping from it, and long proved a 
meeting place suited to the varying fortunes of a 
hated and hunted people. Owing to the many 
changes inseparable from the eventful history of 
the church at Hill Cliffe, the earliest records 
have been lost. But two or three facts point to 
the very early existence of the community itself. 



A CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. 203 

In 1841 the then old chapel was enlarged and 
modernized; and in digging for the foundation, a 
large baptistery of stone, well cemented, was dis- 
covered. How long this had been covered up, 
and at what period it was erected, it is impossible 
to state; but as some of the tombstones in the 
graveyard adjoining the chapel were erected in 
the early part of the sixteenth century, there is 
some probability for the traditian that the chapel 
itself was built by the Lollards who held Baptist 
opinions. One of the dates on the tombstones is 
1357, the time when Wickliffe was still a fellow 
at Merton College, Oxford; but the dates most 
numerous begin at the period when Europe had 
just been startled by Luther's valiant onslaught 
upon the papacy. * * * * Many of these 
tombstones, and especially the oldest, as we can 
testify from a personal examination, look as clear 
and as fresh as if they were engraved only a cen- 
tury ago. * * * * Hill Cliffe is undoubtedly 
one of the oldest Baptist churches in England. * 
* * * The earliest deeds of the property have 
been irrecoverably lost, but the extant deeds, 
which go back considerably over two hundred 
years, described the property as being * for the 
Anabaptists.' " (Goadby's Bye-Paths, pp. 21-23). 

These facts are also confirmed by Cramp. 

To show how deep seated is the conviction 
among English Baptists that this Church reaches 
into great antiquity I give an extract from The 
Baptist, London, June 5, 1896. The writer says: 

" One fact, however, and one of some impor- 
tance, seems to stand out with sufficient clearness. 



204 DID THEY DIP ? 

viz.: that so far as E7Lgla?td is concerfied the Church 
at Hill Cliffe is the link — not, of course that there 
are no others, ^or these there are, as Mr. Compton's 
article shows, but this is a material and tangible 
link — of historic continuity between the Baptist 
Churches of the present and those of the Pre-Ref- 
ormation period. Here, at any rate, we get away 
from the miserable and truculent negatives, 
' Nonconformity'^- and ' Dissent,' and reach an al- 
titude where our position is not \veighed and 
measured by its relation to a ' Church' which, 
however imposing politically and socially, is one 
to which we owe no kind of allegiance whatever, 
and with which we have nothing to do." 

I will now turn to the Church at Eythorne, 
Kent. If the reader will turn to a former chapter 
he will find much in regard to the Baptists in 
Kent. Without repeating these statements I 
shall relate some additional facts as given by 
Goadby. He says: 

" The Church at Eythorne, Kent, owes its origin 
to some Dutch Baptists, who settled in this 
country in the time of Henry the Eighth. They 
were, doubtless, tempted to make England their 
home by the brisk trade that sprang up between 
this country and Holland, soon after the marriage 
of Henry with Anne of Cleves (1540). * * * 
In the Calendar of State Papers (Domestic 
Series, 1 547-1 580), under the date of October 
28th, 1552, we have this entry: ' Northumberland, 
to Sir William Cecill. Wishes the King w^ould 
appoint Mr. Knox to the Bishopric of Rochester. 
He would be a whetstone to the Archbishop of 



A CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. 205 

Canterbury, and a confounder of the Anabaptists 
lately sprung up in Kent.' * * * One singu- 
lar fact, perhaps without a parallel, in the history 
of this ancient General Baptist Church at Ey- 
thorne, deserves to be mentioned; the names of 
the pastors, from the close of the Sixteenth Cen- 
tury to the last quarter of the Seventeenth Cen- 
tury, were John Knott. The first John Knott be- 
came the pastor of Eythorne somewhere between 
1590 and 1600, and the last John Knott removed 
to Chatham in 1780." (Bye-Paths in Baptist His- 
tory, pp. 23-26). 

Dr. Howard Osgood, the eminent Baptist 
scholar, makes this comment: 

" If we would make the first Baptist church to 
appear under Helwise, in 1614, then we must deny 
the historical evidence of the conventicles of 
Baptists in the previous century. If we make 
the church founded in London in 1633 the first 
Calvinistic Baptist Church in England, we assume 
that all the Baptists and Baptist churches of the 
sixteenth century were Arminian in their views, 
which has never been shown, and is contrary to 
all probability. Baptists were found in the north 
and west but principally in the east of England. 
Under the dreadful persecution of the Tudors, 
the churches knew little of each other, unless 
they were situated near together. We hear more 
of the Calvinistic church formed in 1633, because 
it was situated in London and performed an im- 
portant work in the following years. Joan 
Bucher, who was a member of the Baptist church 
in Eythorne, Kent, burned by order of Henry 



206 DID THEY DIP ? 

VI., held this doctrine." iyThe Standard, 1875, 
Chicago). 

Goadby is equally confident of the history of 
the church at Bocking and Braintree, Essex. He 
says: 

*' In Strype's Ecclesiastical Memorials we find 
these words, under date 1550: 'Sectaries ap- 
peared now in Essex and Kent, sheltering them- 
selves under the profession of the Gospel, of 
whom complaint was made to the Council. These 
were the first that made separation from the 
Church of England, having gathered congrega- 
tions of their own.' They were the first, that is, 
of which Strype had heard. The congregation in 
Essex was mentioned to be at Bocking; that at 
Kent was at Faversham, as I learnt from an old 
register. From whence I also collect that they 
held the opinions of the Anabaptists and the 
Pelagians; that there were contributions among 
them for the better maintaining of their congre- 
gations; that the members of the congregation 
in Kent went over with the congregation in Essex, 
to instruct and join with them; and that they had 
their meetings in Kent, and in divers places be- 
sides Faversham.' In other words, the Kent 
churches at Eythorne, Faversham, Sandwich, 
Canterbury, perhaps, and other places, helped to 
build up, if they did not actually originate, the 
church at Bocking.' 

•' Bocking and Braintree are two parishes di- 
vided by the main road, and the whole is now 
known as Braintree. The 'complaints' by whom- 
soever made, against the Baptists at Bocking, led 



A CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. 207 

to their being watched, and about sixty persons 
were in the house when the sheriff interrupted 
their assembly. They confessed to the Council 
that they had met to talk the Scriptures, and that 
they had not communed at the parish church for 
two years. Some were fined and set at liberty, 
others were imprisoned, and remained until 
Queen Mary came to the throne, when they were 
released, only to be taken into custody, and by- 
and-by to the stake. * * * 

'' The Bocking-Braintree church-book, still in 
existence, carries back the authentic records of 
the church for more than two hundred years; but 
there is no question that the origin of the church 
itself dates back to the days of Edward the Sixth." 
(Bye-Paths in Baptist History, pp. 26-28). 

Here is an answer that is sufficient, if we had 
no other. We present not three believers but 
three Baptist churches which had existed long 
before 1641. 

2. I mention as three believers who were im- 
mersed before 1641, William Kiffin, Hanserd 
Knollys, and John Canne. 

William Kiffin seceded from the Independents 
in 1638. Of this Goadby says: 

"Five years after the above date (1638), a fur- 
ther secession from the original church strength- 
ened their hands. Among the seceders were 
William Kiffin and Thomas Wilson. Kiffin, to 
whose pen we are indebted for the account of the 
origin of the first Calvinistic Baptist church in 
England, thus speaks of the reasons which led 
him to join Mr. Spilsbury: — *I used all of my en- 



208 DID THEY DIP ? 

deavours, by converse with such as were able, 
also by diligently searching the Scriptures, with 
earnest desires to God that I might be directed 
in a right way of worship; and, after some time, 
concluded that the safest way was to follow the 
footsteps of the flock, namely, that order laid 
down by Christ and his Apostles, and practiced 
by the primitive Christians in their time, which 
1 found to be, after conversion they were bap- 
tized, added to the church, and continued in the 
Apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and breaking 
of bread, and prayers.'" (Bye-Paths in Baptist 
History, p. 351). 

This Independent church to which Mr. Kiffin 
belonged was organized in 1616. Mr. Henry 
Jacob was its first pastor and Mr. John Lathrop 
was the second. In 1633, during the pastorate of 
Mr. Lathrop, there was a division on the subject 
of immersion and a Baptist church was organized 
under the leadership of Mr. Spilsbury. Lathrop 
in 1634 removed to America with part of his 
church, where he still had trouble with his church 
on the subject of immersion. Dean, who was a 
very able historian and editor of a number of the 
works of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 
says: "Controversy respecting the mode of 
baptism had been agitated in Mr. Lathrop's 
church before he left England, and a part had 
separated from him and established the first 
Baptist (Calvinistic) church in England in 1633. 
Those that came seem not all to have been 
settled on this point, and they found others in 
Scituate ready to sympathize with them." 



A CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. 209 

It was to this church that Kiffin united. Indeed 
so greatly was Kiffin in favor of immersion that 
he soon left Spilsbury's church because they 
occasionally admitted ministers to preach for 
them who had not been immersed. Crosby says: 

" He was first of an Independerit congregation, 
and called to the ministry among them; was one 
of them who were concerned in the conferences 
held in the congregation of Mr. Hefiry Jessey ; by 
which Mr. Jessey and the greatest part of the 
congregation became proselyted to the opinion of 
the Baptists. He joined himself to the church of 
Mr. jfohn Spilsbiiry, but a difference arising about 
permitting persons to preach amongst them that 
had not been baptized by immersion, they parted 
by consent." (History of the Baptists, Vol. III., 

P- 3-4)- 

All of this took place before 1641. (Ivimey's 
History of the Baptists, .Vol. II., p. 297.). This 
settles the fact Kiffin was baptized before 1641. 

I now refer to Hanserd KnoUys. M'Clintock 
and Strong say: "A few years before (1635), 
though unknown to Williams, a Baptist preacher 
of England, Hanserd KnoUys, had settled in New 
Hampshire and taken charge of a church in Dover; 
but he resigned in 1639 and returned to England." 
(Encyclopaedia Biblical Theology and Ecclesias- 
tical Literature, Vol. I., p. 654). To confirm this 
statement we haye contemporaneous evidence. 
Cotton Mather mentions a number of Baptists 
among the first planters of New England, and 
that some ministers of that persuasion came over. 
He says of Hanserd Knollys: 



2l0 DID THEY DIP ? 

" Of them there were some godly Anabaptists; 
as namely, Mr. Hanserd Knollys (whom one of 
his adversaries called absurd Know les), of Dover, 
who afterwards moved back to London, lately 
died there, a good man, in a good old age." 
(Magnalia Christi Americana, Vol. I., p. 243. 
Hartford, 1855). 

He wrote an autobiography of himself, which 
was edited and completed by William Kiffin. 
Knollys died September 19, 1691, and from the 
words of Kiffin it is probable that he became a 
Baptist as early as 163 1. Kiffin's words are: 

"The author of these ensuing experiences was 
that ancient and faithful servant of God, Mr. 
Hanserd Knollys, who depaited this life in the 
ninety-third year of his age, having been employed 
in the works and service of Christ, as a faithful 
minister, for above sixty years; in which time he 
labored without fainting under all the discourage- 
ment that attended him, being contented in all 
conditions, though never so poor in this world; 
under all persecutions and sufferings, so that he 
might therein serve his blessed Lord and Saviour. 
I have myself known him for above fifty-four years, 
and can witness to the truth of many things left 
by him under his own hand." (Life and Death of 
Hanserd Knollys, p. 47. London, 1812). 

The Rev. George P. Gould, M. A., a learned 
Baptist scholar of England, is now editing and 
bringing out a series of Baptist Manuals, histori- 
cal and biographical. In 1895 ^^ published one on 
Hanserd Knollys by James Culross, M, A., D. D., 
president of Bristol Baptist College. After stat- 



A CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. 211 

ing that Hanserd KnoUys became a sectary, pro- 
bably in 163 1, he declares: 

" Had Baptists thought anything depended on 
it, they might have traced their pedigree back to 
New Testament times, and claimed apostolic suc- 
cession. The channel of succession was certainly 
purer, if humbler, than through the apostate 
church of Rome. But they were content to rest 
on Scripture alone, and, as they found only believ- 
ers' baptism there, they adhered to that." (P. 39, 
note). 

The Rev. John Canne, author of the mar- 
ginal references of the Bible was an eminent min- 
ister of those times. When he became a Baptist 
is uncertain but it was certainly before 1640. 
He was found in Bristol in 1640, preach- 
ing in ** public places" and was declared to 
be a " baptized man," or an immersed man as 
that phrase was used. I give a conclusive state- 
ment from the Broadmead Records. These Rec- 
ords say: 

" Anno, 1640. And thus the Lord led them by 
His Spirit in a way and path that they knew not, 
having called them out of darkness into his marvel- 
ous light by Jesus Christ our Lord. So that in the 
year of our ever blessed Redeemer, the Lord 
Jesus (1640), one thousand six hundred and forty, 
those five persons, namely, Goodman Atkins, of 
Stapleton, Goodman Cole, a butcher of Lawford's 
Gate, Richard Moone, a farrier in Wine street, 
and Mr. Bacon, a young minister, with Mrs. Haz- 
zard, at Mrs. Hazzard's house, at the upper end 
of Broad street, in Bristol, they met together, 



212 . DID THEY DIP ? 

and came to a holy resolution to separate from 
the worship of the world and times they lived in, 
and that they would go no more to it. And with 
godly purpose of heart (they) joined themselves 
in the Lord, only thus covenanting, that they 
would in the strength and assistance of the Lord 
come forth of the world, and worship the Lord 
more purely, persevering therein, to their end." 
(Broadmead Records, pp., 17, 18). 

The Records continue: 

" At this juncture of time the providence of 
God brought to this city one Mr. Canne, a bap- 
tized man; it was that Mr. Canne that made notes 
and references upon the Bible. He was a man 
very eminent in his day for godliness, and for 
reformation in religion, having great understand- 
ing in the way of the Lord." 

Mrs. Hazzard, who was the wife of the parish 
priest, found him and fetched him to her home. 
Then the Records say: 

" He taught the way of the Lord more per- 
fectly, and settled them in church order, and 
showed them the difference betwixt the church of 
Christ and anti-Christ, and left with them a 
printed book treating of the same, and divers 
printed papers to that purpose. So that by this 
instrument Mr. Canne, the Lord did confirm and 
settle them; showing them ho,w they should join 
together, and take in members." (Pp. 18, 19). 

Mr. Canne then attempted to preach in a sub- 
urb of the city and a wealthy woman placed some 
obstructions in his way. The Records say: 

" The obstruction was by a very godly great 



A CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. 213 

woman, that dwelt in that place, who was some- 
what severe in the profession of what she knew, 
hearing that he was a baptized man, by them 
called Anabaptists, which -was to some sufficient 
cause of prejudice, because the truth of believers 
baptism had been for a long time buried, yea, for 
a long time by popish inventions, and their 
sprinkling brought in room thereof. And (this 
prejudice existed) by reason (that) persons in 
the practice of that truth by baptism were by some 
rendered very obnoxious; because, about one 
hundred years before, some beyond the sea, in 
Germany, that held that truth of believers bap- 
tism, did, as some say, did some very singular ac- 
tions; of whom we can have no true account what 
they were but by their enemies; for none but 
such in any history have made any relation or 
narrative of them." (P. 19,20). 

" For good measure " I will also mention Paul 
Hobson. Ivimey says of him: 

" He is mentioned among the rejected minis- 
ters. Dr. Calamy supposes that he was chaplain 
of Eaton College, and that he had a place of 
command in the army; but observes, that if he 
had conformed afterwards it would have made 
some atonement, as was the case in other in- 
stances. In addition to these circumstances, we 
find that he was engaged as early as 1639, as one 
of the chief promoters of founding a Baptist 
church in London. He was one of the pastors 
who signed the Confession of faith of the seven 
churches in London in 1644." (History of the 
English Baptists, Vol. L, p. 88). 



214 DID THEY DIP ? 

This Statement of Ivimey that Paul Hobson was 
a preacher is confirmed by Edwards. Edwards 
who was a contemporary says that he had been 
an Anabaptist preacher " a long time." This was 
written in 1645, ^^^ ^^ Anabaptist in the mouth 
of Edwards was always a " dipper." Edwards' 
words are: 

" There is one Paul Hobso?i a Taylor, who comes 
out of Buckinghamshire and is now a Captain, hav- 
ing been in the Armies, who hath been a Preacher 
a great while. This man when he was in the 
Army, where ever he came he would Preach pub- 
likely in the Churches, where he could get pul- 
pits, and privately to the Souldiers; the subject 
matter of his Sermons was much against Duties, 
and of Revelations, what God had revealed to 
him; he was a means to corrupt some precious 
hopeful young men who went out of Loiido?i; and 
preaching one time against Holy Duties (as an 
understanding man who heard him, related to me 
and other company), he spake thus." Then this 
further statement is volunteered: "This Paul 
Hobson is one of those whose hand is subscribed 
to the Confessio7i of Faith of the Anabaptists, set 
forth last Winter." (Gangraena, p. 33. London, 
1645). 

Here is positive contemporaneous proof that 
Paul Hobson was an immersionist in 1639, for he 
was engaged in forming a Baptist church, and the 
inference is that he had been a Baptist many years 
before this. 

The Reader will also call to mind that in the 
chapter " On the Baptists before 1641 " I give an 



A CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. 215 

account of a number of persons who were dipped 
before 1641 in England. 

3. The proof is positive that noted Baptists 
after 1641, who were certainly dippers, positively 
state that Baptist Churches, as they were then 
organized, had long existed in England. 

The first witness is William Kiffin. He makes 
this declaration in a book called "A Briefe Re- 
monstrance of the Reasons and Grounds of those 
people commonly called Anabaptists, for their 
separation," etc. A Mr. Poole had ajddressed to 
him certain Queries for an answer. The second 
Query was: 

" By what Scripture Warrant doe you take 
upon you to erect new framed congregations, 
separated to the disturbance of the great Worke 
of Reformation now in hand? " 

To this Kiffin replied: 

" Ans. This querie hath in it these two parts. 

I. That we erect new framed separate congrega- 
tions. 2. Wee do by this disturbe the great 
Worke of Reformation now in hand." 

He then says: 

"To the first, it is well knowne to many, espe- 
cially to ourselves; that our congregations were 
erected and framed according to the rule of 
Christ, before wee heard of any Reformation, 
even at that time when Episcopacie was in the 
height of its vanishing glory." 

He further states: 

"And for the second part of your querie That 
we disturb the great Worke of Reformation 7iow in 
hand; I know not what you meane by this charge, 



216 DID THEY DIP ? 

unless it be to discover your prejudice against us, 
in Reforming ourselves before you, for as yet we 
have not in our understanding, neither can we 
conceive anything of that we shall see reformed 
by you according to truth, but that through 
mercie wee enjoy the practice of the same already; 
tis strange this should be a disturbance to the in- 
genious faithful Reformer; it should bee (one 
would think) a furtherance rather than a disturb- 
ance, and whereas you tell us of the work of 
Reformation now in hand, no reasonable men will 
force us to desist from the practice of that which 
we are perswaded is according to Truth, and 
waite for that which we knowe not what it will 
be; and in the meantime practice that which you 
yourselves say must be reformed." (Pp. 12-14. 
London, 1645). 

Here isr-a declaration by one of the most intelli- 
gent Baptists of the times, whose sources of in- 
formation were of the best, who declares inside 
of four years of 1641 "that our coifgregations 
were erected and framed according to the rule of 
Christ, before we heard of any Reformation;" 
and then he goes on to defend at length that these 
congregations possessed the whole Truth. I do not 
see how a statement could be more conclusive. 

We are not shut up to this statement. Daniel 
King, 1650, only nine years after 1641, wrote a 
treatise called *' A Way to Zion, Sought Out, and 
Found, for Believers to Walk In." This startling 
proposition in the first part is proved, 

" I. That God hath had a people on earth, ever 
si?ice the comi?ig of Christ in the flesh, throughout 



A CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. 217 

the darkest times of Popery, which he hath owned 
as Saints and as his people." 

The third part 

" Proveth that Outward Ordinances, and 
amongst the rest the Ordinance of Baptism, is to 
contmue in the Church, and this Truth cleared up 
from intricate turnings and windings, clouds and 
mists that make the way doubtful and dark." 

Certainly that would be a very arrogant claim 
if the Baptists of England only began in 1641. 
And what is more, this book of King's is indorsed 
by Thomas Patient, John Spilsbury, William 
Kiffin, and John Pearson. These men declared 
that the assertion that " there are no true churches 
in the world" and " no true ministers " has been 
of " singular use in hands of the devil." I quote 
a portion of their words: 

" The devil hath mustered up all his forces of 
late to blind and pester the minds of good people, 
to keep them from the clear knowledge and prac- 
tice of the way of God, either in possessing peo- 
ple still with old corrupt principles; or if they 
have been taken of them, then to perswade with 
them that there are no Churches in the world, and 
that persons cannot come to the practice of Or- 
dinances, there being no true ministry in the 
world; and others they run in another desperate 
extreme, holding Christ to be a shadow, and all 
his Gospel and Ordinances like himself, fleshy 
and carnall. This generation of people have 
been of singular use in the hand of the Devil to 
advance his kingdom, and to make war against 
the kingdom of our Lord Jesus. Now none have 



218 DID THEY DIP ? 

been more painfull than these have been of late, 
to poison the City, the Country, the Army, so far 
as they could; inasmuch as it lay upon some of 
our spirits as a duty to put out our weak ability 
for the discovering of these grosse errors and mis- 
takes; but it hath pleased God to stir up the spirit 
of our Brother, Daniel King, whom we judge a 
faithfuU and painfull minister of Jesus Christ, to 
take this work in hand before us; and we judge 
he hath been much assisted of God in the work in 
which he hath been very painfull. We shall not 
need to say much of the Treatise; only in brief, 
it is his method to follow the Apostles' rule, prove 
everything by the evidence of Scripture light, ex- 
pounding Scripture by Scripture, and God hath 
helped him in this discourse, we judge beyond any 
who hath dealt upon this subject that is extant, in 
proving the truth of Churches, against all such 
that have gone under the name of Seekers, and 
hath very well, and with great evidence of Scrip- 
ture light answered to all, or most of their Objec- 
tions of might, as also those above, or beyond 
Ordinances." 

Henry D'Anvers was one of the most influen- 
tial and best informed Baptists of the seventeenth 
century. He was a distinguished colonel in the 
Parliamentary army and Governor of Stafford. 
He wrote the most powerful book of the century 
on baptism. He makes the most positive claims 
of the long continuance of Baptists in England, 
and that the Baptists had continued in " the good 
old way." I quote two paragraphs: 

" In the sixteenth year of King James, 1618, 



A CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. 219 

that excellent DiitcJi piece, called A very plai7i a?id 
well-grounded Treatise concerning Baptism, that 
with so much authority both from Scripture and 
Antiquity, proves the baptizing of Believers and 
disproves that of Infants, was printed in Englis'i. 

** Since when (especially in the last thirty or 
forty years) many have been the conferences that 
have past, and many the Treatises that have been 
written pro and con upon the subject, and many 
have been the sufferings both in old and new 
England, that people of that perswasion have 
undergone, whereby such light hath broken forth 
therein that not only very many learned men 
have been convinced thereof, but very many con- 
gregations of Baptists have been, and are daily 
gathered in that good old way of the Lord that 
hath so long lain under so much obloquy and 
reproach, and been buried under so much Anti- 
christian rubbish in these nations." (A Treatise 
on Baptism, p. 308. London, 1674). 

Thomas Grantham was one of the greatest 
Baptist writers of the seventeenth century. 
Under date of 1678 he wrote: 

" That many of the learned have much abused 
this age, in telling them that the A?iabaptists (i. e. 
the Baptized Churches) are of a late edition, a 
new sect, etc., when from their own writings the 
clean contrary is so evident." (Christianismus 
Primitivus, pp. 92, 93. London, 1678). 

I shall give the words of a Baptist, who closed 
the century with a book on baptism. He speaks 
with no uncertain sound. Joseph Hooke had read 
largely on the subject, and his book shows that 



220 DID THEY DIP ? 

he was scholarly. He claims a succession from 
the days of the apostles. Mr. Hooke says: 

" Thus having shewed negatively, when this 
sect called Ana-Baptists did not begin: we shall 
shew in the next place affirmatively, when it did 
begin; for a beginning it had, and it concerns 
.us to enquire for the Fowitain Head of this Sect; 
for if I was sure that it were no older than the 
Munster- Fight that Mr. Erratt puts in mind 
of, I would Resolve to forsake it, and would 
persuade others to do so too. 

^'That religion that is ?iot as old as Christ and 
his apostles, is too 7iew for me. 

" But secondly, affirmatively, we are fully per- 
swaded, and therefore do boldly, tho' humbly, 
assert, that this Sect is the very same sort of People 
that were first called Christia?is i n A?itioch, Acts 1 1 , 26. 
But sometimes called Nazarenes, Acts 24, 5. And 
as they are every where spoken against now, even 
so they were in the Primitive Times. Acts 28, 22." 
(A Necessary Apology for the Baptists, Lon- 
don, 1701, p. 19). 



ROGER WILLIAMS. . 221 



CHAPTER XII. 

ROGER WILLIAMS, 



I have read, and re-read, Dr. Whitsitt's chapter 
upon " The Baptism of Roger Williams " with in- 
creasing surprise. He argues at great length in 
favor of sprinkling and then ends the chapter 
with this remarkable concession: 

In the present state of information it would be unwise to 
pronounce with certainty any conclusion regarding this 
question. However, within the limits of the uncertainty 
which is freely acknowledged, the weight of evidence ap- 
pears to incline very clearly towards the view that Roger 
Williams was sprinkled and not immersed at Providence 
in 1639. (P. 164). 

Dr. Whitsitt nowhere intimates that there is an 
author who states that Williams was sprinkled. 
His argument rests wholly upon inferences and 
those inferences are not well grounded. His in- 
ferences are: i. That the Baptists of England 
were in the practice of sprinkling, and therefore 
Roger Williams was sprinkled. His words are: 

Is there any ^^rz<?r/ reason for supposing that he was 
in advance of them in this regard? It has been suggested 
that he was a person of unusual independence of mind, but 
has any proof ever been given to show that his independ- 
ence was employed in this particular direction? (P. 150). 

We demand proof for the very thing he takes 
for granted. I have already shown that this in- 
ference is false, and that the Baptists of England 
were not in the practice of sprinkling. And 2. 
Williams was not dominated by the English Bap- 
tists. Williams was an independent man, and ap- 
pears to have been controlled by his own impres- 
sions of the teachings of the New Testament. 



222 DID THEY DIP ? 

Dr. Whitsitt has declared that it was " proba- 
ble " that Williams was sprinkled. All the world 
has believed, and still believes, that he was im- 
mersed. The burden of proof rests upon Dr. Whit- 
sitt. He must present proof to establish his po- 
sition. This he has utterly failed to do. All that 
he has attempted is to explain away the force of 
certain authors, and to quibble over the meaning 
of the word wash. Then he admits that he does 
*' not positively settle the question regarding the 
act employed." (P. i^i). 

I invite attention to some of the evidence in 
favor of immersion. Every contemporary who 
mentions his baptism, Williams himself included, 
and all the later writers, declare that the act was 
an immersion. 

I shall first give some side lights on the sub- 
ject. Dr. Whitsitt dismisses the fact of Mr. 
Chauncy practicing immersion with this remark: 

But nobody has shown that Mr. Williams regarded the 
view of Chauncey with any sort of favor at the time when it 
was advanced. For aught we know to the contrary he may 
have felt a prejudice both against the man and his conten- 
tion. (P. 149). 

But Mr. Chauncy cannot be dismissed so 
lightly. There is a clear connection between the 
immersions of Mr. Chauncy and the Providence 
men. I shall give the explicit testimony of Gov- 
ernor Bradford, then governor of Plymouth 
Colony. He shows not only that Chauncy was 
an immersionist but that the whole of New Eng- 
land was agitated on the subject of immersion. 
He says: 

I had forgotten to inserte in its place how ye church 
here had invited and sent for Mr. Charles Chansey, a rev- 



ROGER WILLIAMS. 223 

erend, godly and very larned man, intending upon triall to 
chose him pastor of ye church hear, for ye more comfort- 
able performance of ye ministrie with Mr. John Reinor, the 
teacher of ye same. But ther fell out some difference aboute 
baptising, he holding that it ought only to be by dipping, 
and putting ye whole body under water, and that sprink- 
ling was unlawfull. The church yeelded that immersion, 
or dipping, was lawfull, but in this could countrie not so 
conveniente. But they could not nor durst not yeeld to him 
in this, that sprinkling (which all ye churches of Christ doe 
for ye most parte at this day) was unlawfull & an humane 
invention, as ye same was prest; but they were willing to 
yeeld to him as far as yey could, & to ye utmost; and were 
contented to suffer him to practise as he was perswaded; 
and when he came to minister that ordnance he might so 
doe it to any yt did desire it in yt way, provided he could 
peacably suffer Mr. Reinor, and such as desired to have 
theirs otherwise baptized by him, by sprinkling or power- 
ing on of water upon them; so as ther might be no disturb- 
ance in ye church hereaboute. But he said he could not 
yeeld hereunto. Upon which the church procured some 
other ministers to dispute ye pointe with him publikly; as 
Mr. Ralfe Patrick, of Duxberie, allso some other ministers 
within this governmente. But he was not satisfied; so ye 
church sent to many other churches to crave their help and 
advise in this matter, and, with his will & consente, sent 
them his arguments written under his owne hand. They 
sente them to ye church at Boston in ye Bay of Massachu- 
setts, to be communicated with other churches ther. Also 
they sent the same to ye churches of Conightecutt and 
New-Haven, with sundrie others; and received very able & 
sufficient answers, as they conceived, from them and their 
larned ministers, who all concluded against him. But him 
selfe was not satisfied therwth. Their answers are too 
large hear to relate. They conceived ye church had done 
what was meete in ye things, so Mr. Chansey having been 
ye most parte of 3 years here, removed himself to Sityate, 
wher he now remaines a minister to ye church ther. (Of 
Plimoth Plantation by William Bradford, pp. 382, 384). 

These extracts show that the whole of New 
England was agitated on the subject of immersion 
before the baptism of Roger Williams. The 
churches took action on the matter. We learn 
from Keyne's MS. that the Boston Church re- 
turned answer to the Plymouth Church, June 21, 
to " whether it be lawful to use sprinkling in bap- 



224 DID THEY DIP ? 

tism, or rather dipping.; Mr. Chauncy being of the 
mind, that it is a violation of an ordinance to use 
sprinkling instead of dipping." ( Bradford's Hist. 
N. E., Vol. I., p. 331, note). But as much as 
Chauncy was admired at Plymouth the church did 
not employ him, on account of his views on the 
subject of immersion. This is set forth by Hooker 
in a letter to his son-in-law. Shepherd, November 
2, 1640. He says: 

I have of late had intelligence from Plymputh. Mr. 
Chauncy and the church are to part, he to provide for him- 
self, and they for themselves. At the day of fast, when a 
full conclusion of the business should have been made, he 
openly professed he did as verily believe the truth of his 
opinion as that there was a God in heaven, and that he was 
as settled in it as that the earth was upon the center. If 
ever such confidence find success I miss my mark. Mr. 
Humphrey, I hear, invites him to Providence, and the coast 
is most meet for his opinions and practice. (Felt's Eccl. 
Hist., Vol. I., p. 448). 

It will be seen from this letter of Hooker that 
Mr. Chauncy was invited on his leaving Plym- 
outh to go to Providence, for " that coast is most 
meet for his opinions and practice." That is to 
say, they believed in immersion at Providence. It 
cannot mean anything else, for Chauncy still 
held to infant baptism. This is perfectly plain, 
for Felt says of Chauncy, July 7, 1642: 

Chauncy at Scituate still adheres to his practice of im- 
mersion. He had baptized two of his own children in this 
way. A woman of his congregation who had a child of 
three years old, and wished it to receive such an ordinance, 
was fearful that it might be too much frightened by being 
dipped as some had been. She desired a letter from him, 
recommending her to the Boston Church, so that she might 
have the child sprinkled. He complied and the rite was 
accordingly administered. (Felt's Eccl. Hist., Vol. I., p. 
497). 

So there is no difference between Chauncy and 
the Providence men on the act of baptism. 



ROGER WILLIAMS. 225 

This will also turn light on the banishment of 
Roger Williams in 1633 from Plymouth. He held 
Anabaptist opinions, which meant that he re- 
jected infant baptism and believed in immersion. 
The more you look into this the more probable it 
becomes. I can only briefly present the facts. 
In 1633 he was " already inclined to the opinions 
of the Anabaptists." (Publications of the Narra- 
gansett Club, Vol. I., p. 14). For on requesting 
his dismissal back to Salem in the autumn of 
1633, we find the elder, Mr. Brewster, persuading 
the Plymouth Church to relinquish communion 
with him, lest he should " run the same course of 
rigid Separation and Anabaptistery which Mr. 
John Smith, the Se-Baptist of Amstersdam had 
done." (Pub. Nar. Club, Vol. L, p. 17). 

Wm. Gammel, after stating that Williams was 
immersed, says very truthfully: 

The very mention of the name of Anabaptism called up 
a train of phantoms, that never failed to excite the appre- 
hensions of the early Puritans. Hence it was when Mr. 
Brewster suggested even the remotest association of Roger 
Williams with this heresy, the church at Plymouth were 
easily induced to grant his dismission which he requested. 
A considerable number of its members, however, who had 
become attached to his ministry, were also dismissed at the 
same time and removed with him to Salem. (Gammel's 
Life of Roger Williams, p. 27). 

Thus we are duly prepared for the statement of 
Governor Winthrop, March 16, 1639: 

At Providence things grew worse; for a sister of Mrs. 
Hutchinson, the wife of one Scott, being infected with Ana- 
baptistery, and going last year to live at Providence, Mr. 
Williams was taken (or rather emboldened) by her to make 
open profession thereof, and accordingly was rebaptized by 
one Holliman, a poor man late of Salem. Then Mr. Will- 
iams rebaptized him and some ten more. They also 
denied the baptizing of infants, and would have no magis- 
trates. (Winthrop's Hist. N. E., Vol. I., p. 293). 



226 DID THEY DIP ? 

Putting all of these facts and side lights together, 
it would prove that the Providence men practiced 
. immersion and that Roger Williams was im- 
mersed. 

We are not shut up to side lights but we have 
positive testimony. We have just given the state- 
ment of Governor Winthrop. 

The argument of Dr. Guild, the learned Libra- 
rian of Brown University, upon this statement of 
Winthrop's is conclusive. He says: 

" Perhaps Prof. Whitsitt makes the point that 
re-baptism was not immersion. It has always 
been so regarded in these parts from the begin- 
ning. Williams himself has placed himself on 
record as a believer in dipping." This argument 
cannot be overturned by mere suppositions, and 
nothing has yet been offered to upset it. 

Coddington, who appears to have been an eye 
witness, is conclusive. Coddington was governor 
of Rhode Island and had an opportunity to know 
what he was stating. He says: 

" I have known him about fifty years; a mere 
weather cock, constant only in inconsistency. 
* * * One time for water baptism, men and 
women must be plunged into the water, and then 
threw it all down again." (Letter to Scott, 1677). 

Prof. A. H. Newman, D. D., LL. D., says of 
Coddington's testimony: 

"It seems highly probable that Roger Williams 
was immersed, though I once was of the contrary 
opinion; Coddington, who seems to have wit- 
nessed the ceremony, described it some time 
afterward as immersion." 



ROGER WILLIAMS. 227 

Prof. Vedder after giving the testimony of 
Williams and Coddington remarks: 

" I quite agree with my friend, Dr. Newman, 
that this cannot be explained as other than a 
reference to the baptism of Williams and others 
by Ezekiel Holliman, nor do I see how Codding- 
ton's knowledge of the facts can be successfully 
questioned. Taken in connection with the 
negative testimony. of silence — that we have, in 
all the contemporary literature, not the slightest 
hint of any change of method among American 
Baptists — this seems to me virtually to settle the 
question in favor of immersion in the case of 
Roger Williams. While I would not affirm posi- 
tively that he was immersed, I feel that the 
balance of probability is decidedly on that side. 
In fine, anybody who asserts that anything but 
immersion has been practiced from the beginning 
among American Baptists assumes the burden of 
proof; and ingenious guesses about Mark Lukar and 
things of that sort are ?iot proofs. They may satisfy 
the guesser, but he ca?i7wt fairly ask that ajiybody else 
shoidd be satisfied with them!' {The Examiner, 
May 21, 1896). 

Richard Scott, who appears to have been an 
eye witness of this baptism, for a time a Baptist 
himself, and afterwards a Quaker, writing against 
Williams thirty-eight years afterwards, says: 

" I walked with him in the Baptists' way about 
three or four months * * * in which time he 
broke from his society and declared at large the 
ground and reason for it; that their baptism 
could not be right because it was not administered 



228 DID THEY DIP ? 

by an apostle. After that he set upon a way of 
seeking, with two or three of them that had dis- 
sented with him, by way of preaching and pray- 
ing; and then he continued a year or two till two 
of them left him. * * * After his society and 
he in a church way had parted he went to Eng- 
land." (Appendix to Fox's Firebrand Quenched, 
p. 247). 

Scott makes no mention of a change of opinion 
of the Baptists on the subject of dipping, for it is 
very certain that the Baptists at the time Scott 
wrote this practiced dipping. 

Williams' own opinion on the subject of bap- 
tism was always singularly clear. He declares 
that it is immersion. In a tract which was sup- 
posed for a long time to be lost, but which is now 
in the British Museum, called " Christenings Make 
not Christians," 1645, he says: 

** Thirdly, for our New-England parts, I can 
speake uprightly and confidently, I know it to 
have been easie for my selfe, long ere this, to 
have brought many thousands of these Nations, 
yea the whole country, to a far greater Antichris- 
tian conversion then was ever yet heard of in 
America. I have reported something in their 
Chapter of their Religion, how readily I could 
have brought the whole Country to have observed 
one day in seven; I adde to have received a Bap- 
tisme (or washing) though it were in Rivers (as 
the first Christians and the Lord lesus himself 
did) to have come to 2, stated OmrcJi meeting, &c." 

(P. II). 

In a letter which we find among the Winthrop 



ROGER WILLIAMS. 229 

papers, dated Narragansett, 9, 10, 1649, Williams 
says: 

" At Seekonk a great many have lately con- 
curred with Mr. John Clarke and our Providence 
nlen about the point of a new baptisme, and the 
manner by dipping, and Mr. John Clarke hath 
been there lately, and Mr. Lucar, and hath dipped 
them. I believe their practice comes nearer the 
first practice of our great founder Christ Jesus 
than any other practices of religion do." (Mas- 
sachusetts Historical Collections, Fourth Series, 
Vol. VI., p. 274). 

There is absolutely no proof that Williams 
thought anything but immersion was baptism. 

All writers and authorities, till recently, have 
taken the ground that Williams was immersed. I 
shall add a few of these witnesses. 

John Callender, 1 706-1 738, says: 

"But to take things in their order, Mr. R.Will- 
iams is said, in a few years after his sitting in 
Providence, to have embraced the opinions of the 
people called (by way of reproach) Anabaptists 
in respect to the subject and mode of baptism; 
and to have formed a church there, in that way, 
with the help of one Ezekiel Holliman." (Histor- 
ical Discourse on Rhode Island, pp. 109, no). 

Felt says: 

"Williams as stated by Winthrop, was lately 
immersed." (Eccl. Hist., Vol. I., p. 402). 

Dr. A. H. Newman says: 

" Contemporary testimony is unanimous in 
favor of the view that immersion was practiced 
by Williams. As this fact is generally conceded, 



230 DID THEY DIP ? 

it does not seem worth while to quote the evi- 
dence." 

Dr. George P. Fisher, Professor of Church His- 
tory, Yale University, says: 

" Roger Williams was baptized by immersion." 
(History of the Christian Church, p. 472). 

Bishop John F. Hurst, Methodist, says: 

"Williams was immersed." (Short History of 
Christian Church, p. 516). 

The Watchman, Boston, May 14, 1896, says: 

*' When he affirms that the re-baptism of Roger 
Williams was by sprinkling, he states what has 
not been proved by historical evidence, and the 
presumptions are altogether against such a state- 
ment." 

Dr. Newman says of Dr. Dexter: 

" Knowing that Dr. Dexter was master of the 
literature pertaining to Roger Williams, and sup- 
posing that his inclination would be wholly in 
favor of the non-immersion view, I sought his 
opinion on the question. His answer was entirely 
in accord with my own conclusion. He expressed 
the opinion that, in the absence of contemporary 
evidence against immersion, Coddington's state- 
ment must be accepted as probably correct. In 
matters of this kind an ounce of fact is worth a 
ton of conjecture." {TJie Examiner, May 21, 
1896). 
. Schaff says: 

** In 1638 he became a Baptist; he was im- 
mersed by Ezekiel HoUiman and in turn im- 
mersed Holliman and ten others." (Creeds of 
Christendom, Vol. I., p. 851). 



ROGER WILLIAMS. 231 

Against the inferences of Dr. Whitsitt that Will- 
iams was sprinkled, I put the solid facts that 
he was immersed. " An ounce of fact is worth a 
ton of conjecture." Thus goes to pieces the last 
proof of Dr. Whitsitt's theory. 



Did They Dip? 



OR 



AN EXAMINATION INTO THE ACT OF BAPTISM 

AS PRACTICED BY THE ENGLISH AND 

AMERICAN BAPTISTS BEFORE 

THE YEAR t64L 

BY 

JOHN T, CHRISTIAN, M. A., D. D. 

pastor east baptist church. 
Louisville, Ky. 

And Author of ** Immer sion^ the Act of Baptism,^^ " Close Communion ; 

or, Baptism as a Prerequisite to the Lord^s Supper,*' ** Americanism or 

Romanism, "Which ? ** ** Four Theories of Church Government,*' 

** Heathen and Infidel Testimonies to Jesus Christ,** etc. 



INTRODUCTION 



BY .; 0^ '^"'VGr^^^ 

T. T. EATON, D. D., LL, D, \'^'^'^^'^^^- J"; 

Pastor Walnut Street Church, and 
Editor Western Recorder. 



Clotb, 75 Centa. paper, %3 Cente* 



BAPTIST BOOK CONCERN, 
Louisville, Ky. 



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